


triumvirate

by openended



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Attempted Rape, Community: stargate_summer, F/M, M/M, Multi, Telepathy, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:48:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam, Jack and Daniel come back from a mission hearing each other's thoughts, everything starts to go awry.  Feeling feelings they've never had to feel before - and hearing thoughts they really wish would shut up already - they stumble through to discover the truth behind their predicament.  Sam's capture leaves all of them reeling but faced with the reality of splitting up the team, they pull together and strike a deal with aliens they don't quite trust who promise to return them to normal...if that's even possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ray guns are not just the future

**Author's Note:**

> *** Please make sure that you've selected the "show creator's style" button at the top (by chapter index and comment). Otherwise you're going to be _really_ confused about what's telepathy and what's not. :) ***
> 
> blue italics indicate telepathy. (if "blue italics" is neither blue nor italic, you haven't clicked "show creator's style")
> 
> Neverending thanks to **nursebadass** and **lavenderseaslug** who beta’ed this thing from the beginning when it was just one scene to what it is now. I don’t even have words for how phenomenal these two ladies are; **nursebadass** spent the night before we went on vacation not sleeping, but betaing my final frantic attempt to finish and **lavenderseaslug** rocked out a two-day turnaround time for me because I fail time management forever. The reason this story is even postable is because of them. They have not seen the final version, so any mistakes in this are my own.
> 
> [fanmix](http://tolovesomebody.livejournal.com/23421.html) by **nursebadass**  
> [art](http://pattrose.livejournal.com/333505.html#cutid1) by **pattrose**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part one - genetic world

It’s bright.

Jack squeezes his eyes shut behind his sunglasses as Daniel asks what the hell just happened. He shakes his head, getting sand in his hair, and only makes the pounding headache worse. “I have no idea.” He rubs at his temples and carefully opens one eye, vaguely aware that there’s a rock in the middle of his back.

Daniel blinks. He looks at Jack lying on the ground, obviously suffering from the same pain Daniel is, and wonders whether the Advil in his pack is easily accessible or has floated to the bottom. “What?” He unzips his pack and starts digging for the painkillers.

Jack takes a deep breath to brace himself against vertigo, and sits up. He blinks away spots and glances up, making sure that they aren’t surrounded by angry natives wielding spears or Jaffa aiming staff weapons at their heads. Satisfied that they’re secure enough to wallow in the overwhelming headache, he rests his elbows on his knees. “You asked what just happened.”

“No I didn’t.” Daniel rubs the back of his head, his other hand still deep in his pack, feeling for the bottle that’s just out of reach.

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Sir…”

Carter’s groan ends the argument. Jack follows her voice and finds her on the ground behind him; he closes his eyes for a moment while his head yells at him for turning too fast. “You okay there, Carter?”

Bracing a hand behind her on the sandy ground, she slowly sits up and immediately drops her head between her legs. “My head,” she says, palming the back of her skull.

“Yeah, it’s going around.”

Sam unscrews the lid of her water bottle and accepts a handful of painkillers from Daniel, finally successful in his search. “Where’s Teal’c?” She tosses the Advil in her mouth and chases them with a swallow of water, dropping her head back down again in an effort to keep the world around her still.

“No kidding,” Daniel says, taking his own pills before reaching out to give Sam’s shoulder a supportive squeeze.

“I am here, Major Carter,” Teal’c says from his position by the DHD.

Daniel blinks rapidly at Teal’c. “Why aren’t you…?” he gestures to himself and the other members of SG-1 sitting on the ground, feeling hungover without the fun night.

“I was unaffected by the light.”

“Wait,” Sam says, catching up with the discussion. “Daniel – no kidding what?”

Daniel offers the painkillers to Jack and then tosses the bottle back into his pack to be lost again. “You asked if someone could turn off the sun.”

Sam frowns, confused again. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, Carter,” Jack says, “you did.”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Major Carter is correct,” Teal’c says firmly, “she did not request that one of us ‘turn off the sun.’”

“Yes she did, Teal’c.”

“Whatever!” Jack says, unwilling to dive headfirst into this argument at least until his head has stopped pounding. “Teal’c, what the hell happened?”

“We left the SGC intending to explore this planet for its potential as a Beta Site. Colonel O’Neill commented upon the brightness of the sun, Major Carter attempted to explain that this star’s magnitude is different than ours but I believe Colonel O’Neill ignored her.”

“I heard that, Carter!” Jack snaps.

“I didn’t say anything!” Sam protests. “Sir,” she adds as an afterthought.

Teal’c ignores them both. “Colonel O’Neill suggested that we ‘get a move on.’ We walked perhaps five meters before a flash of light hit us. I recovered first, several seconds after being rendered unconscious. I determined there was no threat, but when I could not also wake you, I began to dial the SGC. Daniel Jackson awoke while I was dialing and I thought it prudent to not alarm the SGC if Colonel O’Neill and Major Carter were to awake soon as well.”

“Carter?” Jack looks at her for explanation of how a flash of light could be as effective as a bottle of tequila in causing a legendary headache.

Aware that the other three are looking to her to answer the question, Sam sighs. “I thought it,” she says hesitantly after a moment, hoping that this isn’t going where she thinks it’s going.

“What?”

“Turning off the sun, sir. I thought it, but I didn’t say it out loud.” She’d also thought a smart remark about Colonel O’Neill never paying attention to her when she’s excited about science, but chooses not to mention that. He can make that logical jump on his own.

“Then how did Jack and I hear you?”

As an experiment, Sam runs through the periodic table very loudly in her head. She stops at platinum. By the expression on Colonel O’Neill’s face, she knows that this is going _exactly_ where she thinks it’s going.

“Gold?” Daniel says hesitantly, after counting forward from hydrogen.

“Yep,” Sam says.

Jack feels a throbbing begin behind his eyes that he thinks has very little to do with whatever hit them coming out of the gate. “Teal’c, dial up the gate. We’re going home.”

* * *

  
Jack kicks the air underneath the infirmary cot. He’s been poked, prodded and stuck; he’s had blood drawn, lights shined in his eyes, he’s been two different scanning machines, and someone has asked him to stick out his tongue and say _aah_. Fraiser usually gives some sign that she’s found something useful, but all she’s offered up is a _stay here, please_ when he hopped off the cot two hours ago to get lunch. He watches while she puts the result of an MRI up on the light board. He can’t read it, but he can tell by her facial expression that something’s interesting. He rubs his temple. “Can you not think so loudly?”

“Sorry, sir,” Sam says. She grimaces, unable to hold back a thought about this being her normal thinking volume and that it’s probably impossible for someone to think loudly.

We won’t call it insubordination if you think it. For the moment.

Sam looks up, startled. He’s smirking at her. Thank you, sir.

“Doctor Fraiser?” General Hammond walks into the infirmary, looking more concerned than usual. He’s used to his teams coming through the gate injured in ways he can see and catalog, not in the middle of a three-way argument that’s only half spoken out loud.

Janet takes a deep breath and turns to the four scans on the board. “Well, sir, Teal’c appears unaffected, like we originally thought. But as for Colonel O’Neill, Sam and Daniel…there’s a lot about the brain that we don’t understand, but this area,” she points at a highlighted section, “is usually dormant.” She slides another scan up on the board. “This is a scan of Sam’s brain three months ago. The area is dormant in this scan, but active in the one I took today.” She looks at General Hammond. “This is consistent for all three of them.”

“Which means what, Doctor?”

“I don’t know, sir. Something happened on that planet that activated a portion of their brains. It appears to have telepathic effects –”

“Uhm,” Jack raises his hand, “not ‘appears,’” he makes air quotes around the word. “Does. Definitely does.” He looks to Daniel and Carter for confirmation and they both nod.

Janet ignores him. “– and being next to the communication and emotion centers, I suppose that makes sense. But I don’t know how it happened or, at the moment, how to turn it off.”

Jack tunes out the rest of the conversation and turns his concentration inward. He hears Daniel trying to get Carter’s attention, and Carter patently ignoring him in favor of actually listening to Janet talk about neuroscience and brain activation. He knows that he would hate it if anyone intentionally listened to his thoughts, so he tries very hard not to hear Daniel’s train of thought that starts with why would anyone ever do this to someone else and I hope this is reversible turn to we planned to be offworld for three days, is there any food in my kitchen and I wonder if Sam would be up for dinner tonight and finally derails with a mental image of Carter in a black lace bra and a shit shit think of something else Jack can hear you before the words switch to a language Jack doesn’t recognize.

Jack coughs politely. He waves off Janet and General Hammond who look at him in concern before returning to their discussion of his brain. He spares a look at Daniel, who is beet red, and then Carter, who’s doing her best to think of very complicated physics while staring intently at the floor.

He coughs again, mentally. How long has that been going on?

Couple of months, sir.

Ever planning on telling me?

Nope.

Daniel.

We were concerned that it might get one or both of us moved from the team, sir.

The regs only apply to military personnel, Carter.

We get in our share of firefights, sir.

Jack nods; the rules are there to prevent anyone doing something stupid in combat because someone they care about is in trouble. I wouldn’t have said anything unless it started to interfere _._ He’s not sure what he would have done with that information, but it would’ve been nice to know.

Sam squirms on the bed, torn between feeling guilty that she hadn’t told him and feeling annoyed that he now knows: it’s private, as are the daydreams she has when listening to Lee or Felger ramble on about things that can’t possibly work. Now, nothing’s private and she can’t seem to stop her mind from thinking about Daniel, no matter how hard she tries to nudge things in the direction of physics, astronomy or motorcycle maintenance. I know, sir, and I’m sorry – we should’ve said something to you. Sam blushes, catching a stray thought of Jack’s that involves her in the very bra Daniel was imagining. And we won’t call it inappropriate if you think it, sir. For the moment.

Thanks, Carter.

“How are you doing?” General Hammond finishes his conversation with Doctor Fraiser and turns his attentions on the three afflicted members of SG-1. Having been given a clean bill of health, Teal’c stands stoically beside him.

“Apart from having to listen to Carter’s physics lessons and Daniel prattle on in Ancient Sumerian –”

Egyptian.

“– just fine, sir.”

“I can’t send you through the gate if you’re distracted by every stray thought someone else has. Until further notice, SG-1 is to stand down. Let’s see if we can figure out what happened, and how to fix it.”

“Sir,” Sam says, “I know we don’t want to send anyone else to P9A-378 in case this,” she gestures to the three of them, “happens again. But if we could trigger the beam –”

More of a flash.

“– again and get some scans, it could go a long way to providing some explanations.” Anticipating General Hammond’s question, and hearing Jack’s, she continues. “The _beam_ –”

Flash.

Due respect – shut up, sir.

“– seemed to have no effect on Teal’c.” Sensing that neither man is interested in this line of inquiry, she changes tactics. “Sir, is there any problem leaving the MALP there, set to run continuous scans? We could dial in periodically to pick up data; it could help us figure out if this is a natural phenomenon or artificial, what kind of light it is and how it affected us…”

General Hammond raises his hand, silencing her. “We will leave the MALP there, Major. Doctor?” He turns back to Fraiser.

Janet exhales and slides her hands into her lab coat pocket. “Other than the telepathy, there’s nothing wrong with them, sir. They’re free to go.”

* * *

  
“Wonder if it works when we’re asleep, too,” Daniel muses around the toothbrush.

Sam presses a fluffy towel to her face. “I hope not,” she says. “You have really weird dreams.” She uncaps her toothpaste and starts on her own teeth.

Daniel spits into the sink Sam isn’t using and swishes water around in his mouth. He leans against the bathroom counter and crosses his arms. “I’m not the one who dreamt about being a pregnant Miss Scarlet in an Irish castle that turned into a greenhouse halfway through the game.” Blinking, he looks innocently at Sam from behind his glasses.

She scoffs and takes the toothbrush out of her mouth so she can properly defend herself. “That was one time and there was Vicodin involved. It doesn’t count. Hey!” She makes a face at him in protest after being swatted with a towel.

Daniel lets her finish brushing her teeth in peace while he turns down the covers. Sam’s arms slip around his waist and, leaning back, he smiles. He tangles his fingers with hers as she lays her cheek against his shoulder. He likes what they have, whatever it is: it’s quiet and easy and it’s nice to be able to talk about the nightmares and be honest and uncensored with someone who understands the bruises and scrapes and occasional broken bones. They gravitated toward each other after he descended, realizing their jobs to be too difficult to do alone and too impossible to explain to anyone else. Her thumb gently rubs against his palm and he squeezes her hand. Daniel can’t help overhearing her mind become less organized, turning instead to fuzzy logic and thoughts of bed.

“Did you take drugs?” he asks softly. Sam had quietly spoken to Janet before they all left for the day and in the nightstand drawer is a bottle of something to help them sleep if one or both of them keeps the other awake thinking too much.

She nods and her nose rubs against his neck. “You think a lot,” she says. She smiles at his thought and kisses the nape of his neck. “My nose is always cold.”

Daniel smiles and turns in her arms so he can kiss the nose in question. She yawns after a few minutes. “Okay. Bedtime.” He slides his hands down to her hips and turns them so she’s closest to the bed and walks her the step and a half toward it.

Sam smiles up at him once she’s climbed into bed and slid her feet underneath the covers. She points at the drawer and watches as Daniel debates whether or not to take anything. The debate shakes out on the side of taking something and she pretends not to have overheard the I’ll keep her awake that settled the decision for him; she’s ten minutes from falling asleep regardless of how loud he thinks.

Daniel swallows the pill with a mouthful of the glass of water by the bed. He lies down next to Sam and doesn’t set the alarm: they don’t need to be anywhere until ten tomorrow morning when Janet wants them to meet with a neurologist and, drugs or not, they’re both conditioned to wake up with the sun. Once she’s reached over and turned off the light, he drags the covers up and curls around her, his arm automatically sliding across her waist. “Night, Sam.”

Sam turns slightly and kisses him softly. “Goodnight. Sweet dreams,” she smirks.

* * *

  
Jack hangs up the phone after placing his standard order for Chinese takeout. He scrubs a hand over his face and idly wonders what Carter and Daniel are up to. He can still hear them, almost a whisper in the back of his mind, but if he doesn’t think about it too much it’s almost like they’re gone and things are back to normal.

He scoffs at that – _normal_. He’s run into his fair share (and then some) of less-than-normal situations since being pulled out of retirement and thrown onto SG-1. He likes them, mostly: it’s amusing and keeps the boredom away and while he could do with less time spent in a Goa’uld prison or facing the business end of a staff weapon, on the whole he’s come to accept _not normal_ as his default mode for experiencing life.

Except _not normal_ usually disappears the moment he leaves the base and switches back to _normal_ somewhere on the drive home. On the long list of things he imagined could possibly happen to him offworld, becoming telepathically linked to two of his teammates had not made the cut. He pops the cap off of a beer and thinks that he’ll have to make another addition to the list of things he hadn’t imagined could happen to him offworld but did anyway.

As the beer tingles against his tongue, he drops down onto his couch and turns on the television to catch whatever game is on. He’s soon distracted, not by someone else’s thoughts but by his own. He groans and closes his eyes, leaning his head on the back of the couch.

If they can’t fix this, he’s pretty sure Hammond won’t have much of a choice. He’ll have to break up SG-1.

* * *

  
Sam wakes up first, stretching her long legs underneath the warm covers. Sometime in the night her legs became tangled with Daniel’s and she tries not to jostle him too much as she moves. She frowns, overhearing the tail end of his dream. “What the hell, Daniel?” She turns her head to check the clock; the sun’s barely up, so she turns and settles back into his embrace. There’s no way she’s falling back asleep, especially not with twisting and turning thoughts of elephants chasing him through Manhattan making their way into her mind, but she can close her eyes and ignore the outside world for a while.

Her phone rings. She slaps blindly at the nightstand until her hand makes contact with her vibrating phone. “Carter,” she says, trying to inject as much propriety and as little sleep into her name as possible. She fails. Daniel shifts against her back, awake.

 _“Tell him to stop dreaming so loudly.”_

Without another word, Sam hands the phone backward to Daniel and sits up, sliding her feet out to rest on the floor. She yawns and runs a hand through her hair, causing the short blond locks to stand up more than normal. She looks over her shoulder at Daniel telling Jack that he has control over neither what he dreams nor how energetically he does so, and decides that a shower is probably the best course of action.

* * *

  
Jack taps Sam on the shoulder when she doesn’t answer him for the third time. She jumps and turns in her chair; she takes out her earbuds when she sees him. “Save your hearing, Carter,” he says, wincing at the music blaring out of the headphones.

“Sorry, sir.” She turns off her computer speakers and the music silences. “Daniel thinks really loudly,” she says, “this drowns him out.” After an hour of listening to him translate, she changed her earlier opinion about thoughts only having one volume level and dug her headphones out of the top drawer.

Jack listens for a moment and is accosted by a landslide of disorganized and loud translation of a tablet brought back by SG-4 a few weeks ago. He grimaces. “No kidding.”

“Is there something you wanted, sir?”

“Ah, yes. Has that brain of yours figured anything out yet?”

She shakes her head. “There’s a lot of data here. It’ll take me a couple of days to figure out what I’m even looking at.” When he looks at her as if he’s expecting her to at least throw him a bone, she shrugs. “It seems to be based on proximity.”

“What is?”

“Whether or not I can…hear you or Daniel. I think the closer we are to each other, the better the signal, for lack of a better term.”

“So, what? We just stay far away from each other and we’re fine?”

“You asked what I’d figured out so far, sir.” She twirls her pencil between her fingers and tries, unsuccessfully, to ignore Daniel’s Jack’s in there don’t think of Sam don’t think of Sam, right – translations, Goa’uld, tablet, don’t think of Sam. She rolls her eyes.

Daniel. Get over here.

Sam looks up at Jack, confused. He holds up a finger, indicating for her to wait.

Daniel sheepishly stands in the doorway of Sam’s lab.

“Shut the door,” Jack says. He waits until Daniel has done so before he speaks; he doesn’t want anyone to overhear this, but the other option is to think it and he doesn’t want anyone to walk by and see the three of them standing still, staring at each other in silence. “Look. You two are together, that’s fine. But the harder you think about not thinking about Carter, the more I end up seeing her in some very non-regulation underwear. Which is nice,” he ignores the choice words Carter thinks about him and the way Daniel’s eyes narrow, “but distracting. So if your mind goes there, it goes there.”

“Why isn’t he giving you this lecture?” Daniel turns to Sam.

She shrugs. “Military training.” Telepathy wasn’t exactly covered at basic training, but she’s learned how not to think about things. Mostly.

“Oh!” Jack covers his eyes. “Did not need that image, Carter.” He’s spent some time over the past thirty-six hours wondering what’s under the black lacy bra, but hadn’t put any thought at all toward the exact knowledge of what’s underneath Daniel’s boxers. Thanks to Carter, he doesn’t have to. Realizing that Carter’s now glaring and Daniel looks like he might just hit him, he switches gears and thinks about trout.

“Sorry, sir.”

Daniel looks across the table at Sam. “Military training, huh?”

She throws her pencil at him. “It usually works.”

* * *

  
A week later, Jack finds himself at Carter’s front door, holding a six-pack of beer and unsure whether he should knock, ring the doorbell or just think really hard. Carter opens the door, solving his dilemma for him.

“The steps creak,” she says by way of explanation for her spontaneous appearance at the door, though she had heard him loitering. “Thanks for coming.” She steps aside and lets him in, shutting the door behind them. Daniel was technically the one to invite him to her house for dinner and Daniel isn’t here yet, so she awkwardly takes the beer Jack offers her and leads him to the kitchen.

Jack shrugs and tries to play it nonchalantly, until he remembers that she can hear him thinking. “It was either this or a hockey game I know the outcome of and lousy pizza.”

Sam smiles and removes one bottle from the package and slides the rest of the beer into the fridge. “Siler spoil you for the Rangers/Wild game?” She deftly opens the bottle with an opener bolted to the wall and offers it to him. She’s already halfway through a glass of wine sitting on the counter next to the cutting board.

“Remind me to make him scrub toilets,” Jack says with a grin, taking a swig of the beer. “Whatcha making?” he asks when she returns her attentions to the onion.

Sam stops mid-slice, catching a stray thought about her handling the knife very well. She covers, playing it off as needing to adjust the onion so she doesn’t slice off her finger in the process. “This is going in the chili,” she gestures to a pot simmering on the stove; she and Daniel ate the last of the batch that was in her freezer the other day. “Dinner’s grilled shrimp,” she says, waving her elbow in the direction of a bowl of shrimp marinating in the corner.

“You grill?” He raises an eyebrow and hopes that it’s her that’s doing the grilling and not Daniel, because while he trusts Daniel to talk their way out of a corner he does not trust the man with a flame.

Sam looks up at him, onion perfectly diced in front of her. She lays the knife down and picks up her wine glass. “I have skills.” She swallows her wine and looks at him meaningfully over the rim of the glass.

Jack’s saved from having to think very hard about the weather by Daniel coming in the front door. Carter did say that they’d been together for a couple of months, but Jack knows that Daniel at least ostensibly lives elsewhere and that doorbells are still considered polite.

Carter glares at him briefly before relaxing into an honest smile when Daniel comes into view.

“Sorry I’m late,” Daniel says. “Hi, Jack.” He halts oddly in the kitchen, as if he was about to go directly to Sam, but doesn’t quite know how to act around Jack. “I saw his car, figured I’d let myself in,” he says to Sam. “Uhm,” he starts, sensing a bit of tension in the room, “what’d I miss?” He’d suggested that the three of them have dinner not out of any need to share a meal with Jack but because they all need to figure out how to deal with each other when they can hear and feel every thought and emotion.

Sam clears her throat and answers, because he’s just going to push her for it later if she doesn’t accidentally think about it first and it’s best to get everything out in the open when they’re all here. “Colonel O’Neill was thinking that it’s awfully rude of you to let yourself in despite that I knew you were coming over, you have a key not just for emergencies, and that, as you said, you saw his car in the driveway.” Jackass, she adds mentally before she remembers that he can hear her thoughts, too.

“Carter…” Jack says. He may not have any authority to reprimand her for thinking inappropriate remarks, nor does he want to, but that doesn’t mean he has to like the things she doesn’t say out loud.

“My brain, sir,” she says acerbically, holding his gaze long enough to ensure that he knows she’s not as okay with this as she’s been pretending on base. She opens a drawer, takes out a butane lighter, and heads toward the back to light the grill.

Daniel pours himself a glass of wine and tops off Sam’s. “I don’t think any of us are thrilled, Jack,” he says in attempt to diffuse the tension in the air.

Jack nods and takes another sip of his beer. “How are you two…?” He gestures aimlessly with the bottle, directing conversation into a realm he hopes is a little less volatile, or at least less filled with Carter cursing at him in her head. He lives on the other side of town from her and it’s been blissfully quiet at his house; he only occasionally picks up a stray thought and as far as he can tell, it has to be pretty strong for him to notice. But the two of them seem to have had no change in their relationship; though since he hadn’t known they were together they could be faking.

“Just fine,” Daniel says, unable to hold back a little smirk.

Jack blinks at that for a moment until, “Oh.” He supposes telepathy would help with _that_. Not that, based on the thoughts Daniel is unsuccessfully trying to reel in, they apparently needed any help. “Gonna pretend I don’t know that.”

“Pretend you don’t know what?” Sam puts the lighter back in the drawer and starts sliding the marinated shrimp onto skewers. “Oh!” She squeezes her eyes shut and blushes furiously, thankful that she isn’t facing either of them. “Daniel…” The fact that they haven’t had sex since this happened hasn’t stopped them from inadvertently sharing intentions. And now her commanding officer knows the extent of her imagination.

“Sorry,” Daniel says, and to his credit it sounds genuine. “Jack asked how we were getting along and…”

She holds up one hand, understanding. “Dinner is in ten minutes,” she says, turning around with a plate full of skewered shrimp. “Do you two think you can set the table and pour water without me naked showing up in the conversation?” Without waiting for a response, she turns and goes back outside.

“She’s twenty feet away. Why isn’t she hearing us thinking?” Jack follows Daniel’s cue and takes three glasses out of the cabinet Daniel points to and starts filling them with water from the filter in the fridge.

Daniel pulls out one more place setting than he’s used to. “She’s been spending a lot of time with Teal’c, learning how to make things quiet. Something about if she’s ever going to make sense of that beam then she needs a way to shut me up during the day.”

* * *

  
“That was really good, Sam,” Daniel swipes a piece of bread in the leftover sauce on his plate and pops it into his mouth.

She smiles and leans back in her chair, swirling the remainder of her wine in her glass before finishing it in one swallow. “Thank you.”

“You do have skills,” Jack acknowledges, setting his water glass down on the table. He smiles at her.

She returns the smile, though not as brilliant a one as she gave Daniel, and nods. “Teal’c has been helpful in giving me some techniques for ignoring you,” she starts the conversation that was the whole point of dinner. “They don’t always work, but I can filter out most things so it’s not constant. It’s a little exhausting, though,” she admits. “He said he was willing to work with you two.”

Jack nods solemnly. The concept of meditation has always struck him as new-agey and useless, but he hasn’t seen Carter hauling around a bag full of candles or sitting cross-legged in the middle of her lab, so he assumes Teal’c’s teachings are a little less obvious and perhaps more useful on an hourly basis.

Daniel nods as well, though he’s already had this conversation with Sam. He’s proving to be less adept at quieting his mind than she is, but Teal’c has promised him that there is hope. Sam kicks him under the table and he gets the hint. “About what Sam said in the kitchen, earlier. It’s her brain. And it’s my brain and yours, Jack. None of us should be held accountable for thinking anything someone else happens to overhear.” He catches her eye and she nods, offering him a smile of thanks. She’d asked him to bring that up since she didn’t know how; Jack is her commanding officer and this is an awkward enough situation without her asking for a free pass to call him whatever she wants inside her mind. “Within reason,” he says, catching wind of Jack’s thought process. “If a Goa’uld takes over the base and makes it into one of us, it’s probably a good idea to tell someone about that.”

Sam snorts and it turns into laughter. When she finally reins it in, she swallows and looks at the two men around her table. “Because what this,” she gestures at the three of them, “needs is a Goa’uld weighing in.”

* * *

  
“Colonel O’Neill,” Teal’c says solemnly, “you are not trying.” Candlelight flickers off the tapestries hanging on the walls of his base quarters, but it is not nearly as relaxing as it usually is for him.

Jack wishes there was a wall next to him he could bang his head into. As it is, he’s sitting in the middle of the room, cross-legged on a lumpy pillow that barely conceals that it’s resting on top of reinforced concrete and the scented candles are beginning to give him a headache. “I _am_ trying, Teal’c. Carter and Daniel think a lot and it’s hard to get them to shut up. I don’t think that much. How does _anyone_ think that much?”

Teal’c merely raises an eyebrow. “Major Carter and Daniel Jackson have other activities they can use to distract them from others’ thoughts. It does not require meditation.”

“Yes,” Jack says, feeling like he’s just been insulted for knowing how to take a day off, “Carter has physics and quarks and Daniel has languages and statues. I fish, Teal’c. And watch hockey and The Simpsons.”

Teal’c tilts his head and contemplates what his friend could possibly occupy his time with on base that would prove a sufficient distraction. “Do you not have a significant amount of paperwork General Hammond has requested you complete while we resolve this situation?”

Jack glares. “Paperwork’s not gonna distract me nearly enough, T.”

“Then you must concentrate.”

* * *

  
They discover the physical side of their condition purely by accident.

Sam leans back on her heels and looks up at Daniel, still gripping the counter as he regains control over his breathing. Janet’s insistence on running exhausting tests almost daily, and Sam’s cycle have gotten in the way of any activity beyond dinner and simply sleeping together for the past three weeks. Their plans for an evening of _Lord of the Rings_ and takeout had started with Sam kissing Daniel and pushing him up against her front door the moment he stepped in with the Chinese takeout bag. They’ll get to the movies eventually, but for the moment Sam’s concerned with the throbbing between her legs. Blow jobs turn her on, but not usually _that_ much.

“What?” Daniel manages to ask a few moments later. He blinks at her and, aware that he’s standing in her kitchen with his pants down around his ankles and his cock hanging out, bends down to fix his clothing. He places a kiss on Sam’s forehead, determined to return the favor some time in the evening.

“I think I felt that,” she says, accepting his hand and stands up. At Daniel’s raised eyebrow, she explains. “Your orgasm. I think I felt it.” She gestures in the general direction of the zipper of her jeans. She’s torn between wanting to understand the science behind it and just being really horny.

“Did you…”

“No. I just felt something really intense.”

Daniel looks at her askance. “This isn’t Sam Code for ‘get me off right now,’ is it?”

Sam makes a face and opts for the simple answer instead of sarcasm. “No.”

His eyebrows shoot up at her thoughts and he hooks his fingers into her belt loops and tugs her toward him. He tilts his head and kisses her, softly at first before picking up her sense of urgency. He swiftly slides down the zipper and slips his fingers into her jeans, cupping her through her underwear. “Wow,” he breathes into her mouth.

“Told you,” she says huskily, letting her head fall back so he can pay attention to her neck. She widens her stance to give his fingers easier access. “Okay, I lied. That might have been code.” She grinds against the palm of his hand until he gets the point and pushes the fabric of her panties aside.

Daniel scrapes his teeth against her neck before taking her earlobe into his mouth. “Jesus,” he whispers, easily slipping two fingers into her. He has her on the edge within seconds and with a swipe of his thumb, she clenches around his fingers and moans her release into his neck. He slowly removes his fingers and keeps one arm around her waist to hold her up until she can find her footing. His cock is beginning to twitch again and he knows exactly what she was talking about. “You want to play with this or you want to eat dinner and watch Frodo?”

Sam laughs and rests her head on his shoulder. She’s keyed up and ready to go, but lunch was a very long time ago. Her stomach growls. “Dinner,” she says. And then we can make out on the couch in front of the movie.

* * *

  
Jack frowns. He stares down at his pants. He likes hockey, but not _that_ much. It’s been decades since he’s had a spontaneous and uncontrollable hard-on, so he knows that this isn’t his fault. He reaches over for the phone, intending to call Carter and Daniel and at least find out whether they’re having the same issue, but stops with his fingers clasped around the plastic casing.

“Son of a bitch,” he curses and sets the phone back in its cradle.

He’s clear on the other side of town and if thoughts only sporadically drift over here, he thinks that feelings and horniness should certainly stay where they belong.


	2. liejacker

Sam, underneath him. Naked, eyes closed, breathing hard. Moaning. “Daniel…” Her mouth opens, just a little.

A shift in angle, a groan from both of them. “You’re thinking about him.”

Her eyes flash open, brilliant blue even in the dark. “Am not.” Her leg hooks upward, around a hip, her words not very convincing.

“If you were quieter,” fingers brushing across a hard nipple, “we could do this offworld.”

“I can be quiet,” all current evidence to the contrary.

A low chuckle and the hand moves southward, so wet. “With Jack just a tent wall away?” Fingers find her clit. “No you can’t.”

She comes.

“Oh!” Jack slams his hand down on his desk, causing his pen to briefly levitate. “For crying out loud.” He closes his eyes and thinks of England, Europe, all the countries in Europe, Germany, Nazis, World War II, and finally gets his erection to subside. He’s not sure whether the two of them have figured out the telepathic equivalent of phone sex or Daniel’s just particularly inept at keeping bedroom memories away from work, but it’s getting on his nerves and no amount of reviewing the mediation notes Teal’c left for him prevents him from hearing it. For the past week, he’s had to listen to unintended recaps of the night before and now, he supposes, memories from before this mess even happened.

Memories that apparently involve him.

He shakes his head, trying not to think about that (though with the way Sam is yelling at Daniel to keep it down and for God’s sake stop thinking about sex, it’s unlikely either one would have heard him) _and_ trying not to think about the image of Carter naked, breasts covered in a thin sheen of sweat, or that she and Daniel were clearly talking about him while having sex. The erection isn’t helping paperwork get done.

After five minutes of listening to their banter turn into By the way, I can’t find that black and pink lace bra, can you check your place, Jack gives up. He exhales sharply and shuts down his computer, resigned to the fact that Hammond’s going to yell at him for being even later on the backlogged mission reports he had been working on (off of Daniel’s field notes, which are just one step above illegible, and Carter won’t share) and heads home. “This is ridiculous,” he mutters to himself in the elevator. He knows that Carter’s working hard to figure out what happened to them and how to solve it, but he doesn’t think he should have to listen to the two of them go on like this.

Especially when it tends to involve him.

He was perfectly fine not knowing that the two of them had entertained thoughts of him in bed. Quite fine, happy, actually. It’s not information he needs, nor particularly wants given the impossibility of it ever coming true. He slams the door of his truck a little harder than necessary and begins to drive away from the mountain.

He sighs in relief when the sounds of Carter and Daniel – now back to their own projects, having dropped the subject of her bra – fade away into silence.

* * *

  
“What the hell?” Daniel nearly falls out of bed searching for his cell phone, cheerily singing at him from too far away on his nightstand. “Hello?” He turns it around so the microphone isn’t by his ear.

 _“…figured something out,”_ Sam is saying as he gets the phone situated properly, _“the beam is a combination of visible light and extreme ultraviolet and super low frequency waves. Now, theoretically…”_

“Sam. It’s,” Daniel takes the phone away from his ear and squints at it, catching the time just before the display darkens, “three in the morning. Are you still at work?”

 _“Yes. And I need to talk this out. As I was saying, theoretically…”_

Daniel puts the phone on speaker and drops it on his bed, running a hand through his hair as he sits up. He squeezes his eyes shut and hopes for a moment that he’s still dreaming, but Sam’s still talking and there’s no way he’d be dreaming about her theorizing the effects of various combinations of electromagnetic radiation on the human brain in whatever quantities and ratios they were exposed to (unless she’s naked, which he assumes she isn’t). He yawns and stands up, flipping on a light so he can find some shoes and pants.

 _“Daniel are you still there?”_

“Yep, still here. Keep talking, it sounds fascinating.” Pants and shoes on, he tugs a sweatshirt over his head and grabs his phone. He forgets to unlock the security chain and for a brief moment of panic, he’s convinced he’s going to rip the door out of the frame. He closes his eyes and takes a few seconds to finish waking up and put his phone in his pocket so Sam’s voice is at least muffled when he walks down the hallway; he’s awake enough to unlock his door and walk in a straight line and drive, but not enough to not hang up on her if he messes with the speakerphone.

He drives to the SGC with the window partially down, letting the brisk autumn air do the job of what would ideally be three cups of coffee, and listens to Sam repeat herself several times. “Don’t,” he says, hearing the telltale beep of her coffeemaker and the scrape of her chair against the floor. “You don’t need more.”

 _“Are you in front of a fan somewhere?”_

“I’m on my way to the mountain,” he says, flicking his high beams off as he sees a truck coming the other way. He flips them back on when the truck is past him.

 _“Why? It’s 3:30 in the morning.”_

“Because you’re awake and working and rambling and you need to go to bed, Sam.”

 _“What does that have to do with you driving?”_

“For a very intelligent woman, sometimes you’re not all that smart,” he says, turning into the parking lot. The night guard waves him through. “Even if you don’t sleep, you need to not stare at a computer for four hours. And this is coming from me.”

 _“I’m fine, Daniel. I’m staying here.”_

“Look.” He pulls into a parking space and engages the parking brake, covering another yawn. “You can meet me up here, or I can come down there and drag you. You pick.”

Asshole.

He knows she’s joking and can hear her start to shut down her computer. Yes.

 _“Fine,”_ Daniel can hear the smile in her voice, _“I’ll meet you up there.”_

* * *

  
Jack takes a seat in the briefing room across from Carter. She can barely keep her eyes open despite the large travel mug of coffee in front of her and all he wants to do is dump it on her head and walk out. She looks up at him, confused, and wraps one hand protectively around the mug as if he might actually do it. He looks away and tries to contain his frustration as Daniel careens into the room.

Jack misses Teal’c and his calming presence. Teal’c’s only been gone for two days, having temporarily left the SGC to assist the Jaffa in the field, but already Jack can feel the void. He grits his teeth; this needs to be solved, and fast.

Daniel stops to stare at the two of them. He shakes his head, unable to figure out what the hell is going on without sorting through a cacophony of misquoted Mother Goose – he glares at Jack for that, the man doesn’t even have the decency to sing The Beatles – and takes his seat next to Sam. He nudges her leg under the table, trying to get a smile out of her. When one doesn’t come, only a cartoonish image of Jack with a mug of coffee upside down on his head, he glares even harder across the table at Jack, who’s doing a fantastic job of pretending not to pay attention even though the repeated “Baa Baa Black Sheep” has stopped. Daniel’s about to ask what happened when General Hammond walks in.

“What do we know?” He asks, sitting at the head of the table.

“Unfortunately, sir, not much,” Sam says, suppressing a yawn. “As you know, we decided to leave the MALP there and dial in every so often to pick up data. The beam is triggered by the wormhole closing; it isn’t dependent on life signs. The light appears to be the visible result of spikes…”

Daniel’s heard all of this before, albeit a little less refined, so he tunes her out. What’d you say?

Sam stumbles a bit over her words, but quickly realizes that Daniel isn’t thinking at her and continues on with her explanation of an elevated electromagnetic field and what that might mean for human brainwaves.

I didn’t say anything, Daniel.

What did you think?

I didn’t think anything, either. Get out of my head.

“Look, whatever Carter’s going on about obviously doesn’t make any sense to her. Doc Fraiser’s at a loss, too. Are we going to figure this out or run simulations all day long?”

Sam swallows and takes a measured breath. “I was about to suggest, sir, that because our efforts aren’t turning up anything useful that we try to find whoever created the beam. The MALP video indicates a control panel buried in the sand a few feet away from the gate. It’s either the trigger for the beam, the beam itself, or both, but either way, somebody had to put it there. If we’re lucky, they’re still on the planet.”

Jack asks, “Why wasn’t that our first option?” at the same time as Daniel says, “I thought it was deserted.”

Sam decides to ignore Jack and address Daniel and hope that General Hammond doesn’t notice that she’s dodging her commanding officer’s question. “So did I. But when we tried to dial in yesterday so we could pick up the latest MALP data, we got a busy signal. When we finally got through, the video feed showed several aliens staring at the MALP. One of them shrugged and kicked it, but I guess they weren’t too threatened by it. The beam activated, but didn’t appear to affect them like us; they just kept walking. Either the planet has an indigenous population or somebody else is using it. Whichever it is, sir,” she directs her attention to General Hammond, “we may be able to contact someone who knows what the beam is and how to reverse its effects.”

Hammond nods and takes stock of the three people sitting around the table with him. “Alright, Major. But first – I’m ordering you to get some sleep.”

“Sir –”

“That’s an order, Major. You’ve been on base for sixty-three of the past seventy-two hours. You are not in any position to make contact with alien life until you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. Go home. I will see you Thursday morning. Dismissed.”

Sam stands as General Hammond leaves, and then checks her watch and groans. At 2:00 on a Tuesday afternoon, there’s plenty of work she could do before heading home and sleeping without screwing up her sleep schedule even more than it already is. She ignores Colonel O’Neill making snide comments in his head and instead chooses to shoot him a glare as she walks past him to pick up her things from her lab. She’s mildly aware of Daniel and the Colonel following her.

The elevator ride to her lab is one of the more awkward thirty seconds of her life. She knows why Daniel’s joining her – he’ll follow her home and make sure she actually gets the sleep she’s supposed to get, instead of instantly plugging in her laptop and spending hours staring at data and sensor readings – but has no idea why Colonel O’Neill is with them and he’s currently singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” in his head to keep her from finding out. He hits the chorus and sings a little louder and she gets the feeling that he’s angry with her about something, Daniel too. She’s felt his anger for a while now and when he shuts the door behind them in her lab, she knows that she’s about to find out what’s going on. She decides not to prompt him, and begins packing up her bag to take home with her.

“Carter.”

“Sir.” She pulls her sweatshirt over her head, aware that the temperature has dropped at some point while she’s been underground. Her coat is at home. Autumn hadn’t yet decided to head for winter she left her house a few days ago and out of the many things she’s left at Daniel’s apartment, a coat isn’t one of them.

“You’ve always figured it out before.”

She angrily pushes her hood back. “That’s not fair, sir.”

“We count on you to have the answers, Carter. That’s why you’re here. Instead, you’re working yourself into the ground and eventually Danny Boy takes you home, screws your brains out, and you try again. Get it together.”

Sam clenches her fists, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from taking two steps forward and swinging a punch into his left eye. She feels Daniel go on guard next to her. She opens her mouth to defend herself, but closes it again; better to leave him in silence than try to pick a fight that will end in tears or, more likely, a court martial for striking a superior officer. Sam shoulders her bag, grabs her scarf and keys, and angrily walks out of her lab.

“Jack,” he says, once the door is closed behind her.

“Daniel.”

“What the hell was that?”

Jack shrugs and tries to play it nonchalantly. “It’s true.”

Daniel can’t find fault with that, because it is what she’s doing, but thinks Jack could’ve phrased it better or not at all. “I don’t know what’s going on with you. It’s not her fault this happened and it’s really not her fault that you’re getting pissed off that you’re stuck hearing us.” He holds up his hand when Jack tries to speak again. “I get it. I feel it too, but I don’t take it out on her. And I’m certainly not going to apologize for either of us having a sex life.”

“Daniel, I don’t want to hear this right now.”

Daniel keeps talking, as if Jack hadn’t even spoken. “You’ve been an ass for two weeks, now. It has to stop. Sam and I can feel you being mad at us and that’s not fair. You knew we were together, you said you were fine with it but clearly you’re not. You’re jealous. I don’t know of whom, but you are. And nobody knows what happened to us on that planet or how to fix it so until we find someone who does, we’re stuck with each other. So you need to accept that you are the third point on this triangle and either get in bed with us or shut the fuck up about it.”

And with that, Daniel leaves Jack sitting alone in Sam’s lab.

Jack scrubs a hand over his face and thinks that if nothing else, he at least now has a name to give that feeling that’s been sitting in his stomach for weeks.

* * *

  
“Don’t shoot; I come bearing food.” Daniel raises his hands in mock surrender when Sam opens the door. He’s rewarded with a small smile as she pushes the door wider to let him inside. He can tell she’s still upset, but he doesn’t comment on it. He kisses her forehead and drops the takeout Thai on the kitchen counter before taking his overnight bag into her bedroom. “You okay?”

She nods. “I put Halo into God Mode,” she gestures at the paused video game on her television, “I’m fine.” She frowns when Daniel looks at her meaningfully. “You’ll yell at me for making excuses.”

“What? That he’s been feeling your stress and your stress relief and that’s bound to make him a little tightly-wound? I know that,” Daniel starts unpacking dinner, “I asked if you were okay, not if you had any psychological insight as to what happened in your lab.”

“What’d you say to him?” Sam fills two glasses with water from the pitcher in the fridge and knows he’ll press her to actually answer the question later.

Daniel shrugs and spears a piece of cashew chicken right from the carton. “Something about being the third point on the triangle and either getting into bed or shutting the hell up.”

She knocks one of the glasses over, spilling water over the counter. “Daniel!”

“You said it first.” He tosses her a towel from its spot hanging over a chair.

“I hadn’t slept in a day and a half and there was a lot of coffee.” She glares as she mops up the water, though her anger – embarrassment, really – is rapidly fading.

Daniel chews thoughtfully. He swallows. “Do you mind?” Jack’s showed up enough in both of their fantasies for Daniel to know that he doesn’t really need to ask the question, but he does anyway: while they’d both sensed Jack’s jealousy, fantasies aren’t always reality and they hadn’t talked about whether they’d do anything about it.

Sam blinks and feels a throbbing begin between her legs. “No.”

* * *

  
Jack flips the penny he found on the floor underneath Carter’s desk.

He leaves before it hits the ground.

* * *

  
Through the heady mist that is Sam surrounding him, Daniel senses Jack close by. He thinks key’s behind the plant and returns his attentions to Sam in front of him. He twists his fingers and she moans.

Jack stops suddenly, key in the lock. He feels a twinge of arousal, but it isn’t his. He turns the key and pushes against the door, dropping the key back where it belongs before the door closes behind him. The arousal that isn’t his increases with a low moan and draws him to the back of the house. He knew that this was what he’d be walking into when Daniel gave him the choice, but didn’t expect to have his senses assaulted by his second in command’s impending orgasm. He knows that he can leave now and Daniel will be the only one to even know he was here, and won’t judge him for it, and he’ll try to be less of an ass in the morning. But his curiosity and the images the other two haven’t been able to stifle over the past weeks pull him further into the house, his feet almost having minds of their own.

He has to stop by the bookshelf – and he hears her begging _Daniel, please_ and wonders just what he is doing to her – to take a deep breath. He tries to concentrate on how weird it is that he can feel Carter about to come – and how weird it is that she feels so differently than he does in the same position – rather than that Carter _is_ about to come and that he’s two feet away from watching it happen. He adjusts his uncomfortably-tight pants and manages to calm himself down enough to make it to the bedroom doorway.

Daniel has three fingers inside of her and is drawing lazy circles over her clit with his tongue. Even if he couldn’t feel her, Jack knows that Daniel’s doing just enough to keep her at the edge but not enough to throw her over. Her legs, bent at the knees with her feet firmly planted on the bed, are beginning to shake and the sheets are a lost cause, crumpled beneath her hands. Daniel looks at him sideways and smiles.

“Let her come, Daniel,” Jack says after a few moments of watching her in silence.

Carter’s eyes fly open. “Oh, God,” she says, and there may have been more to it but Daniel chooses that moment to follow directions.

With a twist of his fingers and a flick of his tongue, her _Oh, God_ turns into a moan, and then a scream as her world crashes around her.

Jack watches. Daniel uses his free hand to steady her hips, but her back arches off the bed and she squeezes the sheets even tighter, knuckles going white. Had this happened a month ago, Jack would’ve wondered if Daniel was really that good or if Carter was just that loud, but as it is he can _feel_ that Daniel really is that good and it’s a miracle Jack hasn’t come in his pants yet; he _is_ five seconds away from unzipping just to get some relief.

Carter lets go of the sheets and taps Daniel’s head three times, which Jack thinks is odd until Daniel starts to pull away. Of course – they’ve done this before and from the grin on Daniel’s face, it looks like he would’ve kept at it for another hour had she not let him know that she really needed him to stop. Carter turns on her side and curls into a ball, still quaking with the aftershocks. Jack thinks her spine is perfect.

Daniel slides up the bed and gently tugs her upward so she’s sitting against the pillows. He kisses her temple and drapes an arm around her shoulders and Jack almost feels like he’s intruding until Daniel says, “Don’t just stand there.”

“Oh,” Carter says, as if she’s just remembered that Jack showed up, and maybe she has. It certainly looked like she’d forgotten just about everything she’d ever known for a few minutes. She leans into Daniel but keeps her eyes open, watching Jack walk around the bed and sit on the other side.

Jack carefully sits next to her, unsure what he’s supposed to be doing. If they’d invited him to join them and Daniel was still lying between her legs, he’d know exactly what to do. But he and Daniel are both fully clothed and Carter doesn’t seem to care that her breasts are brushing against his arm or that he saw her in the throes of a mind-breaking orgasm not two minutes earlier.

He decides to start by putting his arm around her waist.

She sighs and doesn’t lift her head from Daniel’s shoulder, but shifts just enough to let Jack know that he’s welcome here.

* * *

  
Jack watches as Carter stands on her toes to peer over the selection of food on her counter. He knows for a fact that she’s not wearing a bra or panties underneath the boxer shorts and tank top she threw on when her stomach began to growl. He’s finding that knowledge somewhat distracting. “So, earlier…” He assumes the boxers are Daniel’s.

Sam looks over her shoulder at him, fork halfway to the Drunken Noodles. “When you were being an asshole?” She catches the look he gives her, the one that says maybe a little bit of decorum wouldn’t be out of line here, and rolls her eyes. “You just saw me naked with Daniel’s head between my legs. I think we’re beyond Air Force formalities. So, earlier. When you were being an asshole,” she prompts him and goes back to picking out dinner.

Daniel digs around in the box of cashew chicken, trying to avoid the mushrooms and not think too loudly. This isn’t his conversation.

“Earlier, when I was being an asshole. I’m sorry.”

Sam sets her plate down and turns to look at him, all sass gone from her expression. “Thank you.” She holds eye contact with him just long enough for him to get that if he ever says anything like that again, she’ll kick his ass – regulations be damned. “Help yourself,” she says, gesturing to the spread of food, “Daniel misinterpreted the weather report as snowpocalypse instead of a light dusting.”

“Did not,” Daniel defends himself. “You keep changing your order on me; I didn’t know what you wanted.”

Sam pats his cheek endearingly on her way to the living room and Jack wonders how on earth he missed the signs that the two of them were together.

* * *

  
“I am not Googling how to initiate a threesome,” Sam says, catching Jack’s stray thought.

“So you’re well-versed in –” his remark is silenced by Sam’s lips on his and her legs suddenly straddling his lap. He definitely knows what to do now. As he slides his hands underneath her shirt and her tongue slips into his mouth, Daniel turns off the television and carries their plates back into the kitchen.

Daniel flips off the kitchen light and leans against the wall, watching the two of them on the couch. Sam rolls her hips and Jack groans and Daniel smiles; he’s been on the receiving end of that before. Jack’s right hand disappears between them to brush against Sam’s nipple before sliding downward.

Sam’s breath catches in her throat and she has to break the kiss when he slides first one, and then two, fingers into her. He’s having trouble getting her shirt off with just one hand, so she grabs the bottom hem with both hands and pulls it over her head, throwing it somewhere behind her. As Jack sucks a nipple into his mouth, Sam lets her head drop back. She catches sight of Daniel just before she closes her eyes.

Gonna join us?

Not yet. Daniel smiles at her. He’s usually unable to tell how much of his arousal is actually his and how much is Sam’s, which he’s written off as a side effect of being intimately involved in Sam’s arousal, so he’s content to watch for the moment and experience it differently. He realizes that part of what he’s feeling is Jack.

Jack curls his fingers and swipes his thumb over Sam’s clit, eliciting a hitched “Oh,” from her throat. He smiles around her breast and presses on just the right spot and soon she’s coming on his fingers. When he feels her start to squirm away, he gently lets her down; he brings his fingers up to his lips to taste her. She shakily climbs off of him and Jack places a steadying hand on her hip until she’s settled next to him on the couch again. Remembering Daniel, earlier in her bedroom, Jack slides his arm around her bare shoulders and she leans into him. Jack looks up at Daniel, still standing by the kitchen, and traces circles around Sam’s nipple with his index finger.

“There is a bed,” Sam says when Daniel walks toward them.

“I know,” Daniel says. He stands in front of the two of them for a moment, ignoring the tightness in his pants growing as Sam works on Jack’s belt buckle. He leans in and tentatively kisses Jack, lightly at first as if almost waiting for the other man to push him away. Jack doesn’t and Daniel deepens the kiss, swallowing Jack’s groan as Sam swirls her tongue around Jack’s cock. Daniel kneels on the couch next to Jack, mindful of Sam’s head, and begins unbuttoning Jack’s shirt.

Jack moans at something Sam does and bucks his hips, which causes Sam’s head to hit Daniel’s elbow. “Carter,” he growls in frustration when she pulls away, rubbing the back of her head.

“I’ll get back to that,” she smirks, “but I have a bed,” she points down the hallway and stands up. Once she’s stepped over the maze of legs blocking her way, she hooks her thumbs into the waistband of the boxers and shimmies the shorts down her legs and kicks them to the side before disappearing out of sight.

Jack looks over at Daniel. “Demanding.”

Daniel stands up and looks at Jack, his eyebrows furrowed. “Did you think she was just a good little soldier?” He offers Jack his hand and helps him out of the couch. He knows that Sam plays the part well, but there’s plenty more to her than just her rank and uniform.

“No,” Jack says and drops his pants the rest of the way to the ground, noting that Daniel’s done the same. “Didn’t peg her for it, that’s all.”

Daniel knows Jack’s lying because he’s suddenly privy to an onslaught of fantasies involving Sam being quite a bit more demanding. He quirks an eyebrow and tries not to give away that he’s experienced the one about being tied to the bed. He’s pretty sure he fails, so he kisses Jack again to distract both of them from following that thought any further. Sam’s impatience slips through and Daniel breaks the kiss to follow her into the bedroom.

Jack walks into the bedroom just in time to catch Daniel and Sam sharing a look he can’t read amidst the three separate arousals intertwining their way through his body. He decides to ignore it, because what Sam had been doing to his cock was way more interesting than interpreting silent communication, and crosses the room to the bed in two steps, kissing her. He’s already decided that if anyone finds out about this and wants to complain, he’s fully intent on blaming it on aliens. He feels fingers on his hips that he knows aren’t Sam’s because hers are too busy drawing designs on his chest and tweaking his nipples. Daniel guides Jack’s boxers to the floor, fingers skimming Jack’s thighs and hips as his hands slide around to grasp Jack’s cock. His breath hitches in his throat and Sam smiles against his lips.

Suddenly her lips are gone and she’s on her knees in front of him, looking up at him as she takes his cock into her mouth. He groans and his eyes roll back into his head; he wonders if Carter knows that this is his favorite inappropriate shower fantasy and then realizes that she probably does. Daniel drops his hand to brush against Jack’s hip before bringing his hand to his own cock. He steps aside and lies on the bed, slowly stroking himself as he thinks about what he’d like to do if he were in Sam’s position.

“Oh, God,” Jack moans, unsure and not caring whether it’s in response to Daniel’s plan or Carter’s tongue. Sam playfully flips off Daniel with one hand – he’ll get his chance sometime – while kneading Jack’s ass with the other. She doesn’t follow Daniel’s fantasy any further than that, but Jack’s more than happy with what she’s doing with her mouth. “Carter,” he says, warning her a few minutes later when he feels his balls start to tighten. She sucks him harder, smirking with her eyes as her tongue swirls around his cock, drawing his orgasm and several curses out of him.

Sam swallows and slowly pulls away from him, licking her lips as she smiles up at him. She takes his hand and he helps her up before pushing her backward onto the bed. She’s barely lying down before she feels him push apart her legs and start to lick at her folds. She spreads her legs wider for him and motions for Daniel to come a little closer. It’s an awkward position, so she resigns herself to just stroking him while Jack slides two fingers inside of her and flicks his tongue against her clit. She squirms under his attentions and moans when Daniel’s lips latch onto her nipple.

“Oh,” she whimpers, Jack twisting his fingers just right. “Please, Daniel,” she manages, hoping he gets the point. She moans a little at the loss of contact when Jack pulls his fingers out and Daniel’s cock disappears from her hand. Looking up at Daniel hovering over her, she bends her knees and plants her feet firmly on the bed, opening herself up for him. He slides into her and she comes.

Daniel doesn’t wait for her to come down before he lifts one of her legs over his shoulder and begins moving inside of her. The way Jack is sucking and pinching Sam’s breasts but watching intently where Daniel’s cock disappears into Sam’s body isn’t making it any easier to keep his thrusts even; watching Jack and Sam had turned him on more than he thought possible, and Sam had gotten him so close. He feels Sam settle down and decides to give her a moment to recover before picking up speed and swiping his fingers across her clit.

Her eyes flash open and the warmth that hadn’t really dissipated pools between her legs again. Daniel starts to come just as Jack gently bites down on a nipple and her back arches off the bed, her moan mixing with Daniel’s as the two of them send her over the edge a second time. Daniel collapses on top of her and she wraps one arm around his back. She’s not sure when her hand ended up on Jack’s head, but she gently massages his scalp, encouraging him to slide up for a kiss.

“Move,” she says after a few minutes, gently shoving Daniel off of her. A quiet moan falls from her mouth when his softened cock slides out of her. She catches Jack’s hand just as it passes her hip and moves it away. She shakes her head – too sensitive, maybe later.

Jack smiles in understanding and kisses her softly before getting off the bed and heading to the bathroom to get a damp cloth to clean her up. Daniel lies contently on his back next to Sam, able but unwilling to move. Jack gently nudges Sam’s legs apart and pays a little more attention than he needs to, but pulls away just before she’s about to glare at him. “What’s with the water?” he asks, watching Daniel lift a water bottle from the floor.

Sam cracks a smile and leans back against the pillows, bending one knee. “Daniel read an article.” She lifts her eyebrows, mocking him as he pouts at her with a mouthful of water.

“About what?”

Daniel swallows. “Sex is very physically demanding,” he says, in a voice that tells Jack he’s about to learn something very exciting in the most boring way possible, “especially when done properly.” He looks over at Sam, who’s trying her best not to laugh and mostly failing. “You need to rehydrate. Stop laughing at me!”

“I didn’t run a marathon, Daniel,” Sam teases, “I had an orgasm. Three, actually.”

“Four,” Daniel says, “if you count the one from earlier.”

She frowns at him, but Jack is the one to voice her thought. “There was water and dinner in between.”

“I’m just saying. You have us beat out by about four hundred percent. Each.”

Jack nods and Sam looks at each of them carefully. “Not my fault there’s a design flaw.” After a moment, she blinks and frowns. “Guys, I can hear you. And wondering if you can even the score tonight is not the way to make it happen.”


	3. you can't imagine how much fun we're having

Sam stretches under the blankets and rolls over, frowning when her hand connects with empty blankets instead of the very masculine chest she’d expected. She opens her eyes, hoping to find him just a few inches out of reach but try as she might, she can’t make his form appear in the crumpled blankets. The clock reads 4:02 in the morning. She listens for the sounds of someone trying to be quiet – even with his tendency to be completely silent, she knows her house and what sounds can be attributed to the heater rumbling to life and what would be someone in the bathroom – and frowns, hearing none.

“He left,” Daniel says sleepily, stroking her bare stomach with his thumb. “Something about Hammond and mission reports and a threat about being demoted back down to lieutenant if they weren’t done by lunch.” He nuzzles her neck. “I told him where your notes are.”

“Mmm,” Sam hums. She rubs her toes against Daniel’s calf and tucks herself further under the covers; she hasn’t yet pulled the down comforter out of storage and it’s colder in bed when she isn’t surrounded by two warm, male bodies. Daniel pulls her closer and she sighs happily.

Daniel presses a kiss against her temple. “Are you okay with this?” It’s been two weeks since Jack joined them and the only nights the three of them haven’t been together have been nights Sam forgets to come home from the base, which are becoming less and less frequent as they cover more and more of the UAV’s range and still can’t find a civilization. He thinks he should be able to feel if she weren’t okay with the change in their situation, but if there’s one thing he’s learned while being with Sam it’s that she’s a master of hiding her emotions when she wants to, even if they are linked to each other.

“Yeah,” she says quietly, turning over so she can look him in the eye. For a while it was exhausting, since it had been the two of them focusing on her until Jack’s recent discovery that Daniel can be fun too (Daniel had known all along that Jack could be fun, but hadn’t pushed), though she hadn’t really minded. “What about you?” She props her head in her hand.

Daniel traces her spine with his fingertips and mirrors her position. “Yeah, I’m okay with it.” It’s different, for sure, and there are moments that he just wants to curl up with Sam, but Jack has been a surprisingly easy addition; it had been awkward for the first few days while they figured out how to balance sex with everything else, but things have smoothed out to something resembling, oddly, normal.

Sam covers a yawn and lies down again, tucking her head underneath Daniel’s chin. Daniel tugs the blankets up around her bare shoulders and makes a mental note to remind her about the comforter in the morning.

I heard that.

I know. Sweet dreams.

* * *

  
The cursor blinks against the white background, mocking him. Jack looks over at Sam’s notes, typed and impeccably organized from the incoherent scribble that takes over her field journals. He finds absolutely no inspiration in her documentation of P4G-556 and its glow-in-the-dark mushrooms and villagers who tried to convince him that it would be best if they ate the glowing fungi and drank something that looked (and smelled) suspiciously like liquefied blue Jell-O. They’d passed on the food and drink – wisely, given how the villagers ended up acting later that night – but the rest of her notes are full of science and words he’s picked up over the years out of self-preservation, but that doesn’t imply he knows what this particular combination of science words _means_.

He groans and drops his head on his desk, barely missing his keyboard. It’s not that he believed Hammond’s threat of demotion, but he just wants these _done_ and any other time, Sam and Daniel are on base and things take four times as long with their thoughts floating around his head. He’s not as adept as the two of them at blocking out other people’s thoughts, and they happen to be the two most focused people he knows when they want to be. It’s a good – no, _great_ – thing in bed, but really annoying when he’s trying to type up a simple mission report about the pastoral society on P84-569 and he hears two, sometimes three or four, languages plus physics, which he thinks should qualify as a language all its own.

He was glad Daniel was still awake when he left; it made it feel less like he was sneaking out (sneaking out to do work, which would certainly be a first). Even after knowing that Daniel and Sam were together, he found it hard to believe. But over the past two weeks, he’s learned that they just click. He’d been afraid of upsetting that, of somehow breaking them, because they certainly deserve to be happy and he refuses to stand in the way. And yet, he’s seamlessly moved into their lives, even earning himself a drawer at Sam’s (“Don’t give me that look – it doesn’t _mean_ anything. You’re over here enough that carting pajamas and soap back and forth is silly.”) and a neon yellow toothbrush in her bathroom.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he exhales deeply and convinces himself that if he tries really hard, he can have this mission report typed up in an hour. After all, as far as spectacularly weird missions go, P4G-556 won’t even make the top twenty.

* * *

  
Jack takes the steps two at a time to reach the control room and nods at General Hammond. Daniel’s already there, standing behind Sam and staring at a dual monitor display. One monitor shows UAV footage of a walled city, with what are unmistakably guns aimed at the plane; the other shows a trio of solemn-looking aliens. Jack frowns: the aliens almost look human, if not for their silver eyes and dusty purple skin. He stays out of range of the camera; later he’ll ask Sam how she made contact with an apparently very advanced alien civilization on a planet they were beginning to think was mostly sand and rocks.

“Why have you contacted us?” The female alien asks, evenly.

Hokari, Sam thinks for Jack’s benefit since he missed the introductory part of the conversation. That’s Culture Minister Ryō.

“We’re peaceful explorers,” Daniel starts with the standard SG-1 explanation. “We came to your planet to meet others and expand our horizons. However, we ran into a bit of a problem when we stepped out of the Stargate. A beam of light rendered myself, Major Carter, and one of our teammates unconscious. When we came to, we could hear each other’s thoughts. We were hoping you have a way to reverse this.”

Ryō’s eyes shift to meet those of the two men who flank her. “The reset protocol,” she says. “It activates automatically upon the closing of an incoming wormhole. It is not designed to be effective on those not of our species.”

Shut up, Jack.

I wasn’t going to say anything, Daniel.

You were thinking it.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Sam jumps in, “what does it do?” Even if she can’t get her hands on the technology, or these people won’t help them, maybe an understanding of its purpose and how it went wrong can help fix it.

Another glance. This time, the man on Ryō’s left speaks. “We are a very sensitive telepathic species. When a member of our species leaves our planet, they are exposed to numerous mental contaminants. The reset protocol ensures that any mental harm they may have encountered while away is erased immediately and prevented from causing catastrophic disaster to our society.”

Health Minister Jaantha, Sam thinks. She doesn’t know much about telepathy, but she’s not sure how thoughts can have a lasting harmful effect on someone; she’ll ask about it later if she gets the chance.

“Quarantine,” Daniel says.

Jaantha nods. “Indeed. We have similar protocols on all landing bays and spaceports.”

Who’s the silent one?

War Minister Kríka.

General Hammond steps forward. “Ministers, we haven’t had success in finding a way to reverse this effect. Would it be possible for one of you to come here to examine our people?”

“Absolutely not,” Kríka says instantly. “Our allies have sent word that you are currently embroiled in a war against the Goa’uld. A representative of our world setting foot on yours would indicate we have joined that war as an ally of yours. As we currently have no desire to partake in this war, this is not ideal. Additionally –”

“– surveys of your world indicate inhospitable mental conditions. A representative, even an experienced shielder, would be incapacitated nearly instantly,” Jaantha finishes.

“We apologize for your inconvenience,” Ryō concludes, “but we must give precedence to the safety and preservation of our own people.”

Sam blinks. “Would it be acceptable for the three of us to visit your world?”

The three Ministers hold another eye conference and return their attentions to the screen.

“You three are no threat to us. Send word when you are coming and we will ensure there is a representative available to escort you to the city.” Kríka nods and the video feed goes dark.

“Kinda pompous, don’t you think?” Jack steps forward out of the shadows, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Sam manipulates the UAV controls so it flies smoothly along the outskirts of a city. “I think they have reason to be, sir.” She zooms in on the video footage. “This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

Jack squints at the screen. “Can you get any closer?”

She shakes her head. “I tried. They have automated defenses that start shooting if anything gets too close. It’s how they knew we were here, so to speak. This is as close as I can get.”

Daniel tilts his head, looking at the sleek spires that tower over the smooth wall defining the city’s edge. “That’s strange,” he says. “It just popped up in the middle of the desert.” It’s been his experience that while cities do exist in deserts, they’re usually nomadic or pre-industrial; anyone with the technology to build something this complex either didn’t come from the desert or wised up and left – it’s not the most resource-rich area.

Sam shakes her head again. “Not really.” She turns the UAV so it’s flying away from the city and back toward the gate. A quick command pulls up a graphical representation of the planet. Red dots appear scattered across the continents. “After we saw the aliens on the MALP, I contacted the Tok’ra and had them send over whatever they had on this planet in case they knew something we didn’t. They don’t, but they did a survey a few years ago. The planet’s mostly ice caps and desert; it looks like they used up most of their resources to get this advanced. Contained cities,” she gestures to the dots, “make sense to help ration what they still have.” She looks up at General Hammond. “Sir, if they know enough about us to know that we’re fighting the Goa’uld and that we have ‘inhospitable mental conditions,’ they probably know that Earth has everything they don’t any more.”

Hammond nods and turns to Jack. “Keep an eye out, Colonel O’Neill. But I need you three back out in the field, which means you need to get this,” he gestures to the three of them, “fixed. You leave at 0600 tomorrow.”

* * *

  
Jack steps into Sam’s lab. “What do you have?”

Sam looks up from her laptop screen, “not much. Tok’ra intelligence is pretty spotty. At one point they approached the Hokari for permission to hide out and were apparently denied.”

“With all their ‘mental contamination’ worries, that’s not a surprise.” Jack gingerly picks up the pile of books stacked on a chair and sets it on the floor. He flops into the chair. “Anything newsworthy?”

Daniel frowns at his notes. “I have no idea how they get anything done. Their government is insanely complex.”

Jack looks at Daniel. “That’s not newsworthy.”

Sam exhales and blows a lock of hair out of her face, ignoring their banter about what qualifies as newsworthy. “Their technology appears to be only slightly less superior than the Asgard. But,” she holds up a finger when she senses Jack about to ask after big space guns, “given how reluctant they were to even walk into the gate room, I doubt they’d be willing to help us along.”

“Anything we need to watch out for?”

“There’s a small prostitution problem. Possession of mind-altering drugs is strictly prohibited. And littering is a really bad thing,” Daniel says.

“So as long as we keep a tight grip on Carter, you leave your pot at home, and I don’t spit my gum out on the sidewalk, we’ll be okay.” Jack grins at the two of them.

* * *

  
Two Hokari meet them at the gate, the beam turned off for the moment, and neither looks particularly thrilled to have been dispatched to escort the humans to the city. Introductions are quickly made and by the way the female – Kaia – rushes them to the transport pod parked neatly beside the gate, Jack wonders if there’s some sort of big event she was granted access to only if she came back in time. Kaia looks at him disdainfully and Jack remembers that she can hear his thoughts and hopes that he won’t accidentally cause an interplanetary incident. Her expression remains the same as she gestures for him to take a seat inside the silver pod. While her companion sits at the control panel and types in commands, Kaia sits facing the three humans.

Jack squirms in the seat. He’s been on third-world trains that have more comfortable seating. Everything may look pretty and shiny, but either the Hokari have vastly different skeletal structures despite their appearances or they don’t care much for comfort.

“You will be taken to Desert City University’s telemedical facility,” Kaia says as the transport pod smoothly lifts off the ground and takes off, gaining speed. She tightly grips the edge of her seat for a brief moment, adjusting to the feeling of accelerating backward. “The reset protocol is designed to affect only Hokari neurological signatures. Our scientists are hesitant to agree that the protocol is what has triggered the telepathy in the three of you and will likely perform many tests before designing a reversal strategy.”

Jack accepts Daniel’s elbow in his ribs for what it is – code to shut the hell up and try not to think anything rude – and stares outside until the fast-moving landscape gives him a headache. While hours spent with Teal’c have helped somewhat, more often than not he can’t keep an inappropriate thought to himself; neither Carter nor Daniel mind much anymore – they have the same trouble – but he knows that now is not the time for that. He recites hockey stats, starting with the Avalanche, to himself and stares straight ahead.

“Could you tell us a little about your culture? You seem so developed and yet so isolated. We haven’t seen anything like your technology.” Daniel’s determined to get something out of this trip other than aliens with slightly-purple skin poking and prodding him.

At that, Kaia allows herself to smile, briefly. “You are a remarkably rudimentary society for one who has developed an extraplanetary exploration program. Given your affinity for random appearances on planets about which you know precisely nothing, it is astounding you have survived this long. And it is unlikely you have discovered all the technologically advanced species this galaxy holds.”

Daniel looks across the transport pod at her. “With respect, you didn’t answer my question.”

“I am a representative of the War Ministry. It is not in my list of duties nor knowledge base to give lectures to primitive offworld explorers on Hokari culture, history and society. Ito,” she nods her head slightly in the direction of the driver, “is Special Assistant to the Under-Minister for Hokari Literature. He is better equipped to answer your question.”

Sam raises her eyebrows and thinks that was a rather haughty way for Kaia to say that she didn’t know anything. She doesn’t acknowledge the glare Kaia shoots in her direction; it’s the other woman’s fault for eavesdropping.

Ito takes his eyes off the desert in front of him to turn and look at his passengers. “Kaia is one of the _many_ Special Assistants to the Under-Minister for Planetary Peacekeeping. Please forgive her rudeness; manners are not considered top priority by the War Ministry.”

For a moment, Kaia looks as though she’s going to argue, but merely settles into her seat with a deeper frown.

Satisfied, Ito returns his gaze to the transport pod’s trajectory and begins to address Daniel’s question. “We belong to and are leaders of the Hokari Collective, a group of cultures and worlds all under our protection from the Goa’uld and other threats. You have seen the first line of our defense technology: we are well-equipped to defend ourselves and others against most any threat…” he trails off.

Daniel blinks at the sudden lack of information until he realizes that he’d inadvertently thought that this was helpful but not at all the information he was looking for. He smiles and thinks about what he might like to know, allowing Ito to tailor his lecture to his audience.

“Because each species has a unique neurological signature, we are required to adapt our reception filters when we encounter a new species; for this reason, we generally do not visit alien worlds. Three visitors like yourselves represent little additional telepathic noise amidst the billions of Hokari, but it would require considerable time and effort to determine how to successfully filter the minds of your entire planet.”

“If you’re protecting other worlds, you must have contact with them,” Sam says.

Ito nods and looks over his shoulder. “Yes. We have ambassadors who are specifically trained to visit other planets.”

Daniel thinks, not for the first time, that they’re extraordinarily lucky that they were only connected to each other. He can’t imagine how overwhelming it would be to be connected to the entire planet.

Kaia nods at him, clearly unimpressed with – and unwilling to address – Daniel’s concerns about a connection to the entire planet. She focuses on Jack’s thoughts, briefly interrupting Ito. “The Collective protects thirteen worlds in addition to any planet in the Hokari system; you are currently on Hokari Prime. These worlds have either expressed interest in our protection, or have required our assistance when faced with the Goa’uld. You have undoubtedly noticed that we have exhausted the majority of our natural resources; in exchange for our protection, the planets of the Collective provide us with necessary resources to develop and produce weaponry and technology.” She leans back in her seat, deferring again to Ito.

Sam listens to Daniel ask questions about history and culture while she stares out of the transport pod’s windows as they rapidly approach the city. She looks upward and barely manages to hold back a gasp at the small ships dotting the sky, some landing inside the city, others taking off. The UAV footage hadn’t even come close to conveying the sheer size and magnitude of the city and the flight patterns above. Activity swarms around the outside walls: transport pods similar to theirs wait in line for entrance to the city while modules of some sort zoom past on a network of tubes Sam thinks are for supplies.

“Major Carter is correct. In lieu of geographic proximity, the supply tube network allows fresh seafood from the Oceanic region to arrive here within the day; technology repairs leave our factories here and arrive in the Mountainous regions in hours. However, access to the cities is tightly controlled. As you undoubtedly noticed, the Stargate is far from any Hokari population center. This is explicitly to prevent any successful infiltration of our people.” Ito slows the transport pod and slides it into place in the line in front of a gate.

Jack counts five pods in front of them and makes a mental bet with himself whether it’ll be more like the US-Canada border in Manitoba or the US-Mexico border in Tijuana. “Why not put the gate some place useful and guard it? Or put an iris on it?”

Kaia pauses halfway to joining Ito in the front compartment; her credentials are what will allow the three strangers into the city. She frowns in confusion, and then receives a mental image of the SGC’s iris. “It is rare, but occasionally a Hokari will leave our solar system to find residence elsewhere. Without Ministry-issued credentials on a ship, it is extraordinarily difficult to receive docking approval. Pedestrians require significantly less paperwork.”

“It’s kind of a hike,” Jack counters.

Kaia turns and faces Jack with an expression Jack can’t read. “It is for security.”

* * *

  
They’re dropped off rather unceremoniously at the steps of a dauntingly large building. Sam looks upward, craning her neck to see the top of it. Made entirely out of glass, she can see into the building through the fourth floor before the angle gets in the way; she wonders how the building is structurally sound without any visible supports. Ito tells Daniel to call on him at the Culture Ministry if he would like a specialized tour of the city once the med techs are finished; Kaia stalks off as soon as she exits the transport pod as if she’s already forgotten the three humans and their dilemma.

“Ah,” Ito says as an extraordinarily tall man strides out of the front door of the building, trailed by much smaller woman. “This is Chancellor Akō; he is the head of the telemedical facility here.”

Chancellor Akō manages a forced smile. “I will oversee your examinations and potential treatment. This is my assistant, Mika. She will take you inside and begin several tests. Ito, may I have a word?” He steps aside without so much as a glance in the direction of Jack’s outstretched hand.

“Come with me, please,” Mika says in the bored tone all three of them are beginning to think is the norm here. “I apologize for the Chancellor’s demeanor,” she says once they’re inside and out of earshot, “we are all very perplexed as to how this occurred. The reset protocol is explicitly designed to function only on Hokari neuropathways else we would have extreme difficulty each time an alien arrived as it activates immediately upon sensing an intrusion. The protocol was his design and he is…reluctant to admit that it may have malfunctioned.” She smiles as they step into a glass elevator.

Sam watches the activity as they ascend past floors housing medical labs, surgery bays, robotics facilities and things she can’t even name. They pause to admit additional passengers and she finds herself enthralled by the holographic scan of an entire body being manipulated by a diagnostician while the patient watches with rapt attention. As soon as the doors close, they’re swept up again and after an additional floor, move sideways. She’s struck by how little she feels the abrupt movement and looks around for anything that could hide inertial dampeners, but the entire car is made of glass.

Mika steps out when the car comes to a halt in front of a door labeled _Telemedical Diagnostics – Reset Protocol Division – Bay 1_. The door swooshes open to reveal a stark white laboratory with two silver cots, each connected to a computer station by a mass of colored wires Jack thinks will end up in a knot if he even looks at them too closely. “Colonel O’Neill and Doctor Jackson, please remain here. Marko will be with you shortly. Major Carter, please come with me.” She takes two steps toward a door marked _Bay 2_ before she realizes that she isn’t being followed.

“Sorry, but we don’t split up off world,” Jack says, standing half a step in front of Sam.

Mika flashes the three of them a smile that borders on patronizing. “I apologize, Colonel O’Neill. Our cultural protocols require different rooms for males and females regardless of species or tests. I must insist.”

Jack notices that Sam’s as uncomfortable with this as he is. “Can you leave the door open?”

Mika nods once. “Yes.” This time, Sam follows her out of the room.

“Are these people robots?” Jack whispers under his breath.

Daniel shrugs and bides his time by peering at all of the equipment in the room. None of it appears to have any labels or language and none of it is on (or if it is, it’s asleep and if SG-1 has taught him anything it’s that touching things to see what happens rarely ends well). “They’re fairly well-established trade and military partners in the galaxy and they’ve clearly managed to develop a relationship with the worlds they protect. If they can’t actually go anywhere to meet new allies and have to do it all essentially over the phone, they probably picked up the habit of stating whatever the cultural or social quirk is to avoid any confusion.”

“And the shoulder pads.” Jack makes a face; their hosts dress like bad extras from Star Trek.

Daniel barely manages to transform a laugh into a cough when the main doors swoosh open at the presence of a large man who might be better suited to professional football than medicine.

“You must be Marko,” Jack says amicably.

Marko blinks. “I am. Let us begin.” He gestures for Jack and Daniel to get on their respective cots. With a wave of his hand over a sensor, the room’s many screens come to life all at once, showing brilliantly-lit graphical displays. He prepares two syringes and explains, at Jack’s protest, that it contains an element that will follow electrical impulses throughout their bodies and allow them to link up with the displays. “It is harmless,” he assures his stubborn patient.

Jack mutters that the reset protocol was supposed to be harmless to them and look how well that turned out, but he rolls up his sleeve.

* * *

  
Sam watches as Mika programs the machine next to her, nimble fingers flying over the LCD controls. Sam finds judging the age of the Hokari difficult, but something about Mika’s movements makes Sam estimate that they’re approximately the same age. “You don’t agree with this,” Sam says quietly.

Mika stops mid-command and looks over at the blonde lying on the table. “I do not understand your decision,” she says, honestly.

Sam sits up and stares at her hands for a moment. “We’re not a telepathic species. Suddenly not being alone in my own mind is…strange. I don’t like it.”

“But you care for Doctor Jackson and Colonel O’Neill, do you not?”

“Deeply,” Sam says, unprepared for the emotions that rise up within her at the thought. She swallows them down.

Mika tilts her head. “Then I do not understand. If you care for these men, why would you want to be separated from them?”

Sam bites her lip and looks away, collecting her thoughts. “It’s not that I want to be separated from them. It’s that I want to be able to sit with them and be completely silent. I want to read a book on the couch with Daniel and not have to filter out whatever he’s reading. I want to play Halo with Jack and not hear him sneaking up on me.”

“We have ways to do as you ask. We can teach you.” Mika injects a needle into Sam’s vein.

Sam shakes her head and holds the piece of cotton to her arm like Mika pantomimes. “You’re taught how to control and filter the telepathy from childhood, while your brains are still developing. We’re adults. Even if it could become an unconscious habit, it would take years.” Sensing that Mika still doesn’t understand, Sam tries a different tactic. “You’ve grown up with this; it’s all you’ve known – right?” She waits for a nod. “Imagine that it was suddenly taken away from you. You could no longer hear your friends, family, loved ones, people on the street.” The terror registering on Mika face makes Sam almost regret bringing this up. “Wouldn’t you do anything in your power to get it back?”

“Of course,” Mika answers and motions for Sam to lie down on the cot while she connects wires to the blonde’s head.

Sam glances at the door, to reassure herself that Daniel and Jack are still close by, despite that she can hear them mentally arguing with each other about what position Marko would play if he were human. She smiles; Daniel doesn’t know anything about football. She looks back up at Mika, the fear almost gone from the other woman’s face. Sam frowns; it was a hypothetical question that shouldn’t have Mika that scared. Unless wiping out the telepathic link is an actual possibility.

Mika looks up sharply from the screen in front of her. She turns to the closed door on the other side of the lab and then looks over her shoulder; her face is briefly concerned before she catches Sam watching her and returns her features to a schooled neutral.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asks, about ready to think loudly for Jack and Daniel and interrupt their linebacker versus wide receiver argument.

The door opens and a short, green-skinned alien sprints in and slams shut the door to the adjacent lab. Before Sam can register what happened or that Jack’s voice is shouting from the other side, three other aliens enter the room. One of them, clearly the leader, steps in front of the other two and holds a weapon at Mika’s head. He fires and Mika crumples to the ground.

Jack! Daniel! Get in…

Before she can finish the cry for help, the weapon has been turned on her and the last thing she sees is a flash of green light.


	4. overpowered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part two - bomb in a birdcage

Jack rips the electrodes from his forehead and rushes toward the metal door; he saw the shadow of a stranger and heard Carter cry for help, adrenaline coursing through her system. He reaches the door just as it clangs shut, slamming his palms onto the cold metal. “How the hell do you open this?” He can’t find a doorknob or a sensor, so he pounds on it even though he knows it won’t do any good. “Carter!” He shouts. He puts his ear to the door and thinks he can hear muffled thuds and curses and the sound of bodies being moved.

Daniel closes his eyes and listens. He blocks out Jack shouting for Marko to open the damn door and quiets Jack’s mental cursing that if anyone so much as thinks about hurting Carter, he’ll have them killed.

He doesn’t hear Sam. His heart sinks.

Somehow, though, he knows she’s alive; the thread of _Sam_ that he’s felt for the past month still hums in his head. Dimmer than usual, but there.

Jack finally convinces Marko to open the door, only to reveal an empty room with an upturned stool and diagnostic equipment smashed to pieces scattered across the floor. He dashes through the open door on the other side of the room and finds himself in an inconspicuous hallway. It’s empty. Jack kicks the wall in frustration, satisfied when his boot leaves a black scuff mark against the perfect, shiny white tile. He slowly walks back to Daniel, bending down to pick up Sam’s combat bracelet from the floor on his way. He adjusts the leather straps and slides it on to his own wrist. “Where is she?”

“I do not know where your friend is,” Marko says.

Daniel grabs Jack’s arm to keep him from stepping any closer to Marko; he has no doubt that, given the opportunity, Jack would follow through with his intention to punch the much larger man. He might even win. Daniel’s not sure he’s ever seen such hatred in Jack’s eyes. He squeezes Jack’s arm: they can’t afford to piss these people off. “Who took her?”

“I do not know.”

“You’re lying,” Jack spits out as he takes a step forward around Daniel.

Marko tilts his head. “I do not know what you ask.”

Daniel turns just in time and shoves Jack’s shoulders backwards, forcing the other man into a chair. Stay _._ Once he’s certain Jack won’t get up, Daniel turns back to Marko. “Obviously there’s someone we’re supposed to call when guests of your government spontaneously disappear for no good reason.”

“Planetary Peacekeeping has already been informed. They will arrive shortly.”

Jack crosses his arms and tips back in the chair until it hits the wall. “We’ll wait.”

* * *

  
Someone roughly pulls the hood off of Sam’s head and she blinks rapidly in the unexpected harsh light. She shakes her head to get her hair out of her face and squints up at her backlit captor standing in front of her. She tries to rotate her wrists, testing the bonds that hold her to the chair, but she can’t; the knots around her ankles are just as tight as those around her wrists. Whoever it is has also divested her of her shirt, jacket and pants though, oddly, left her with boots. She debates asking what they want – and certainly thinks that she’s entitled to being just a little bit bitchy – but her training takes over and she stays silent.

“Beautiful,” her captor turns to the side and she can see that he’s male and, by his posture, that he’s not entirely pleased. It doesn’t stop him from leering at her. Sam resists the urge to spit in his eye. “She is, however, not Hokari.”

He steps further into the light and Sam swallows a gasp. Everything happened so quickly in the medical lab that she hadn’t had a moment to think where she’d seen the green-skinned aliens before. In the back of what she assumed was a transport pod, when she woke up with her head pounding from the energy weapon, she’d convinced herself that they looked like the Orions from _Star Trek_ and that was the end of it. But now, with the stark glare of the bare light bulb shining on the man’s brilliant green skin, highlighting the subtle dark green mottling across his shoulders, she knows exactly where she’s seen them before: the MALP footage.

She hadn’t mentioned it at the time; they were all too caught up in the possibility that the telepathy problem could be gone by dinnertime (they’ve never been so lucky, but it was worth the hope) to focus on the meaning of two different aliens species on the same planet.

“What’s the problem, Driva?” a voice from the corner asks, tired.

“None, for the moment,” Driva says, trailing a green-tinged finger across Sam’s collarbone. He leans in, sniffing her hair, and Sam closes her eyes. He chuckles and dips his finger lower, tracing the edge of her sports bra. “She is… _unique_. We may get a high price for her.”

Sam tenses and forces her eyes open to scan the room while Driva discusses currency with voices in the shadows. The room is empty, save the chair she’s sitting in and a bare, brilliant light bulb hanging from the ceiling, with only one door she can see. She’s tied tightly enough that the chances of escaping are zero and she won’t be able to hurt anyone unless they come in range of a head butt; even then, she makes out enough shapes in the shadows to make that an unwise course of action – she’d hurt one, but the others would hurt her more.

She feels her watch still attached to her wrist, but she can’t twist to read it without drawing attention to herself; she has no idea how long she was out before waking up in the transport pod, or how far away from Daniel and Jack she is. But it can’t hurt. She closes her eyes.

DANIEL!

“She is shouting for her friend,” an unseen male voice announces. Sam pauses, confused. The voice speaks in the same bored, flat cadence of the Hokari.

Driva stops in the middle of his sentence to smack her with the back of his hand. “Silence.”

Sam feels blood trickle into her mouth. She spits, deciding she doesn’t care. JACK!

“Again,” the voice reports.

Her head snaps to the right and a blinding pain explodes behind her eye.

“Ivān,” Driva says, wiping Sam’s blood off of his knuckles. He points to a spot in front of Sam’s chair. “She shouts, you hit her. Understand?”

A hulking silhouette lumbers out of the shadows to stand before her. Driva walks off with the others and the last thing she hears before the door clangs shut is something about destroying perfectly good merchandise. Sam eyes Ivān’s massive hands and apologizes to herself in advance. She relaxes as much as she can. DANIEL!

She has a moment to wonder whether her head actually spun all the way around or it just felt that way and then she blacks out.

* * *

  
“What happened?” General Hammond asks as soon as the wormhole closes behind Jack and Daniel. They’d contacted him as soon as Planetary Peacekeeping had allowed, but Jack’s fidgeting in the background of the video feed while Daniel told him what happened had made Hammond think that they may already be too late. By the looks on the faces of the two men, things hadn’t improved much in the hours afterward.

Daniel barely manages to not shove an SF out of his way as he walks down the ramp. He desperately wants to kick – or punch or break or hurt – _something_ : the situation had devolved into complete unproductivity and looking at thirty seconds worth of video footage while talking to people who were predictably disinclined to help. They’d given up after three hours.

Jack looks around the gate room. “Your office, General.” News that Sam is missing has probably already made it around the base, but not everyone needs to know the details of the situation or any of their suspicions. He sees Teal’c in the corner and nods to his friend, assuming Hammond had called him as soon as they’d hung up the first time.

Hammond nods and leads them up to his office where he repeats the question once the door shuts behind Teal’c.

“They took Carter,” Jack says, simply. “We got split up, something about cultural practices and her having to be in a different room than me and Daniel.”

Daniel jumps in, having committed the security camera footage to memory. “An alien came into the room Sam was in and shut the door. Three others showed up and shot Sam and the doctor with some kind of energy weapon. They took both of them and ran off.” He knows that there’s other footage somewhere – Ito had said that there wasn’t a single move made in the Ministry District that wasn’t recorded, so there must be security cameras in the hallways and elevators – but he asked for it and gotten _there is no more_ in response. “The Hokari said that the aliens who took her were probably a rogue group of…” he trails off, remembering the exact language, “Venkati – one of the races protected by the Collective – engaging in guerrilla terrorist attacks against the Hokari. They didn’t elaborate on the why.”

“General, we have to go back,” Jack starts, hitting the palm of his hand against the chair. “They couldn’t possibly have wanted Carter; it sounds like their beef is with the Hokari and Carter just happened to be there. The doctor they took didn’t seem too high on the food chain. I know not every terrorist group operates the same, but they’ve gotta know that no one’s going to spend time finding the doc. Not when they have bigger problems.”

“What do you mean, Colonel?”

“The Hokari have security coming out their asses, sir. There’s no way those little green men just walked in there with ray guns.”

Hammond leans back in his chair. He files the obvious security problem away for future reference and focuses on his missing officer. “Let’s assume, for the moment, that they’re smart terrorists. And that Major Carter was not the target. If they know no one’s going to come looking for the doctor – and no one will pay ransom or whatever it is they want – why take them?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Liar.

Jack glares at Daniel, gesturing for him to say that which neither of them wants to say out loud. If Daniel’s going to call him a liar – and it’s really only a guess – the other man can damn well say it.

“General, one of the things we discovered before we even went is that the Hokari are having a problem with their people disappearing and showing up months later in brothels on the other side of the galaxy. I think we can safely assume that the Venkati have something to do with that. We can stand here and hope that they’ll let her go because she’s human, but…” Daniel swallows, letting everything unsaid hang in the air.

Teal’c takes a step forward. “If Major Carter was abducted by those who would wish her harm, it would be best to return to the planet as soon as possible before they have a chance to move her.”

General Hammond nods. “Unfortunately, the Hokari have not proven themselves particularly helpful or friendly toward visitors. We’ll have to do this carefully.”

* * *

  
Sam wakes up on her side, a rock digging into her right shoulder. “Fuck,” she groans, placing her palm on the ground to push herself upward and sitting. She leans against the wall behind her for support and closes her eyes against the nausea. When counting very slowly and focusing on breathing doesn’t work, she gives in to the urge and pitches forward onto her knees and throws up.

Her stomach seemingly appeased, she moves to wipe her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt before remembering that most of her clothing is long gone. She settles for the back of her hand and brushes some dirt over the vomit to suppress the smell. “You are not hungry,” she mutters to herself when her stomach starts to grumble as she settles into a corner of the cell. The only light comes from the hallway, so dim it barely makes it halfway into the tiny cell, casting shadows through the bars. She exhales and surveys the small space, brushing at the floor when she realizes that the walls and ceiling make for a very irregularly-shaped room. She moves away about half an inch of dirt before her fingers reach stone. “You’re underground,” she whispers to herself, shivering slightly against the cool, dank air.

She spies a lump of fabric and a mug near the bars. After nearly passing out during the ten seconds it takes to crawl to the bars, she decides to just stay there. The fabric is a blanket, thin but dry and better than the bare skin she currently has as protection against the dampness. She pulls it around her shoulders and inspects the contents of the mug. The liquid doesn’t smell like anything, so she dips her fingertip in and inspects the results; a drop of something clear falls into the dirt below and she assumes that if they wanted to kill her, someone would’ve ordered Ivān to take care of it and she wouldn’t be stuck here, mostly naked and contemplating whether or not what appears to be water is actually water. She sucks her fingertip into her mouth, just to make sure, and then takes a sip. Definitely water.

She finishes half the mug before realizing she should probably ration the water, not knowing if or when anyone’s going to replace it. With a sigh, she sets the mug aside, careful to place it out of the way of the bars in case they open inward. She peers out of the cell, trying to determine if there’s anyone around. Intending to rest her forehead against the bars and squint down the hallway, she places her hand on one of the metallic bars.

She’s instantly rewarded with an electric shock and the entire wall of bars lights up momentarily with a brilliant green flash. Cursing to herself, she shakes out her hand and the sharp tingling recedes into something she can ignore. “Force shield,” she mutters, “why even bother with the bars?” The shock reawakens the thudding in her temple she’d forgotten about in favor of focusing on the nausea and then the water. She gingerly touches her head. It’s sticky and she squints at her fingertip in the dim light: dark red. The room hasn’t entirely stopped spinning since she woke up, which makes her think that there’s a concussion behind it all. “Wonderful,” she grimaces, and dips a corner of the blanket into the mug before pressing it to her temple, trying to clean a wound she can’t even see.

* * *

  
 _This is a waste of time._ Jack balls his hand into a fist underneath the table and out of sight of the monitors; the Assistant Hokari Under Minister for Being a Pain in the Ass isn’t telling them anything they don’t already know.

Daniel kicks him under the table while pretending to be interested in whatever the talking heads are going on about now. Half an hour ago, it was denying the mere presence of abductors and stating that Sam got up and walked away on her own. Now, at least, they appear to have agreed to the truth of their own security footage and moved on to denying official knowledge of anyone who was in the room. We can’t just storm in there, Jack.

It would make me feel better. 

We were together a long time before you came along, slips through Daniel’s mental block before he has a chance to reel it in. He knows Jack didn’t miss the protection and jealousy in his voice.

What? And you think I only care about her because I’m sleeping with her? That’s bullshit. Carter and I, we’ve…

Right, right. Military code. Don’t leave a man behind, stay with each other in battle, whatever. I’ve been there too, Jack. Every step of the way.

Except for that year where you left us.

It was Ascend or die. This way, I had the chance to come back.

Daniel ignores everything else Jack thinks at him and returns his focus to the Hokari. They aren’t saying anything helpful, but it’s much better than trying to have an argument about who cares more about Sam. Whoever it is onscreen nods to General Hammond, who thanks him for his time, and turns off the video feed. The wormhole closes in the Gate Room below them.

“Well,” General Hammond starts, turning away from the monitors and facing Jack and Daniel and Teal’c and the other officers collected around the table. He’s interrupted by the klaxons signaling an incoming wormhole. “What the hell?” He stands and rushes out to the control room, everyone else following him. “Report.”

Sergeant Harriman looks up at the general through his wire-rimmed glasses. “It’s Hokari Prime, sir. Video and audio.”

“Didn’t we just hang up with them?” Jack asks, not really expecting a response.

Hammond nods. “Put it through.”

After a moment of static, the video clears and reveals the face of a Hokari Hammond doesn’t recognize. _“Doctor Jackson, Colonel O’Neill,”_ he says.

“Ito,” Daniel says, shocked. “What are you…?”

 _“I heard what happened to Major Carter. And doubt those to whom you just spoke were completely forthcoming with information.”_

“You know this man?” Hammond looks at Jack.

“He was the friendlier one of the two that escorted us to the city.”

Nodding, Hammond gestures for Harriman to direct the feed into the briefing room. Once everyone is settled in their seats again, he frowns. “I am General Hammond, I am Major Carter’s commanding officer. What can you tell us?”

 _“I do not know the location of your officer, General. But I can assure you that despite whatever the Associate Minister for Planetary Peacekeeping told you, no resources are being expended on her search.”_

“That’s not very reassuring,” Jack says.

 _“I apologize, Colonel O’Neill. I do not have much time before someone realizes I am speaking to you. Please.”_

“Go ahead,” Hammond says with a stern look at Jack.

 _“The Collective requires raw materials in exchange for protection. The Venkati believe that the prices we ask are too great for the protection we provide. We require extreme amounts of supplies in order to manufacture the technology used to protect them and the other races in the Collective; our solar system is almost depleted of useful material. These prices are necessary, though the Venkati do not believe so. Most of the Venkati simply grumble about this, but others take more drastic measures.”_

“Like kidnapping a doctor and her patient?” Jack waves his hand in apology to General Hammond’s glare; he couldn’t help himself.

 _“In recent years they have become more active and our cities have seen an increase in terrorist attacks. Buildings have been leveled, cargo ships full of the very supplies in question blown up on their way to Hokari Prime, mines on our outer planets collapsed with Hokari workers in them, and the like. And, yes, they have also resorted to kidnapping. Because of our telepathy, each Hokari has not only their own thoughts and knowledge, but that of hundreds of others. Should they take someone with true power – a high government official or an engineer – we would be at risk for countless security breaches. Additionally, as I am sure you can understand, a Hokari is worth quite a bit on the black market; telepathy is beneficial in more than simply communication and negotiation.”_

Daniel tries not to squirm awkwardly in his seat and hopes that General Hammond gets Ito’s drift without needing someone to explain it. Luckily, he does.

“Thank you for the information, but how does this help us?”

 _“General, it has become obvious in the past several months that there must be Hokari helping the Venkati. I have heard rumors of Hokari being sympathetic to the Venkati cause, even agreeing that our prices are too steep despite that they are necessary to keep our way of life and territories safe. I do not know how far into the government it reaches, but I would be hesitant to trust anyone.”_ Ito looks over his shoulder. _“I must go. I believe that, by now, the Venkati who captured her have no doubt determined that Major Carter has some level of telepathy. Unless she can convince them she is only connected to Colonel O’Neill and Doctor Jackson, they will try to sell her. I am sorry.”_

The video feed goes blank.

“Oh, crap,” Jack says, speaking for everyone at the table.

* * *

  
Sam spits blood onto the concrete floor and tests her jaw. She feels a click that wasn’t there before, but it’s not broken. She squints through one eye at Driva standing in front of her. “I’m not lying,” she says, on the verge of begging, “I really can’t hear you.”

It’s been like this for days, or what feels like days to Sam. She hasn’t seen daylight since she entered the medical center. Ever since the moment she first called for Jack and Daniel, her captors have been convinced she can hear everything they’re thinking. They’ve been intent on beating the answer out of her and, for once, she actually _can’t_ tell them what they want to hear.

Driva tilts his head, studying by the single bare light bulb in the room. He turns to someone standing in the shadows. “Bring it in.”

Sam takes a deep breath that tastes of copper and mentally screams again for Daniel and Jack. For all his initial concern and interest in finding out if she can hear his thoughts, Driva currently seems remarkably unconcerned with the possibility that she’s trying to contact those whose thoughts she _can_ hear; she’s wondered for a while why there hasn’t been a Hokari in here to make sure she isn’t doing exactly that.

She uses the pause between beatings to assess the damage: she can’t see out of her left eye and she’s pretty sure that a few ribs are bruised, if not cracked. The bruises and inevitable swelling everywhere else are tolerable, but her knee slammed into the floor as they dragged her out of her cell this time and the throbbing is worrying her.

The single door opens and Sam watches as a body is haphazardly thrown into the room. Despite their small stature, she’s learned the hard way that these aliens are surprisingly strong. She frowns as Driva walks toward the newcomer and grasps a handful of clothing, dragging the other prisoner toward Sam and the light. Sam gasps: underneath the bruising and blood and dirt, she recognizes Kaia by the haughty stare.

“Well?”

“She speaks the truth,” Kaia says. “The human cannot hear anyone but the two to whom she is connected. Which makes her more evolved than you, Venkati.” She spits at the man’s feet.

Driva sweeps his foot out and catches Kaia just underneath her chin. She flies across the room and hits the wall with a sickening thump. Sam winces; nobody, regardless of physiology, gets up from a hit like that. He again turns his attentions to Sam. “You see what happens when you lie, Human?”

He moves into the direct line of the light bulb and Sam starts to panic. Her hands are tied behind her back, holding her to the chair, but he left her feet unbound. She grits her teeth and braces herself for leverage; if he gets any closer, she plans to kick him, hard. She has a theory – one she doesn’t like, at all – about where this is going and has no intentions of allowing it to actually happen.

She’s saved from having to kick him, and probably incur even more wrath, by the door opening when he’s just barely out of range.

“Untie her,” a voice from the shadows orders. “She’s being moved.”

The newcomer produces a hood from somewhere and wrestles it onto Sam’s head. She bites his hand and, once she’s standing, earns herself a punch to the stomach for her trouble. There’s a new ache in her side as a result, and she’s pretty sure that hand hasn’t been washed in recent history, and she has no idea where she’s being taken, but the man yelps and she smiles at the small victory.

* * *

  
Daniel doesn’t go home. It’s not intentional (and he figures that the order to go home was to be taken in the vein of “Get off base and out of my hair and let the negotiation and political teams do their jobs” rather than with any specific destination in mind) and, to his credit, he does try. He just misses the turnoff for his apartment and determines the amount of work necessary to turn around at 5:17 on a Friday to be more than he can handle. So he stays straight and takes a left three miles later and eventually ends up parked in front of Sam’s house.

He turns off his car and sits with his head resting on the window until he sees a twitch of the curtain from her neighbor’s house. He knows he should get out of his car and actually go inside, and he tries to tell himself that he’s done this before: he has a key and while he’s usually here only when Sam is, there have been times when he’s had to water her plants or clean out her fridge while a tactical team plans a rescue, and more often than not her _I’ll only be five minutes, go ahead – I’ll meet you there_ turns into two hours and a phone call reminding her to come up for air.

But this is different.

She isn’t five minutes or two hours behind him and he isn’t just stopping by to make sure her plants aren’t dead or things in her refrigerator haven’t grown legs and walked off. And he didn’t leave behind a tactical team planning a rescue; he left behind moderately-skilled politicians trying to pry information out of a collective of aliens who, when asked what color the sky is, would ask you to define _color_ and then turn the discussion into a philosophical debate on subjectivity.

“Get out of the car, Jackson,” he says to himself and counts to ten before following his own order.

He slams the door and jogs up her sidewalk, pausing to pick up a week’s worth of mail and newspapers. He nearly drops everything while wrestling with the door, but makes it inside and into the kitchen before emptying the contents of his arms onto the kitchen table.

Turning on lights as he goes, he pours a glass of water and makes his way around her living room, filling up all of the plants marked with a blue smiley face sticker on their pot. He smiles at the stickers, undoubtedly a gift from Cassie several years ago, and frowns almost immediately. How is it that the outcome of their daily work is so unreliable that it requires them to mark which plants get water, and which ones can go without, so caring friends don’t accidentally kill something?

He’s tempted to pick up a clay pot and throw it against the wall – and if he had made the effort to turn around and go back to his own apartment, he certainly would – but fiddles with the stereo instead, trying to remember what button turns on what set of speakers and whether the orange light means _on_ or _asleep_. If he’s going to attack her fridge – which he knows for a fact was full of _I’ll-throw-them-out-tomorrow_ s before they went on this misadventure – he’s going to need background music.

* * *

  
After two days – she gets fed more regularly here, and she’s assuming three meals to a day – she figures out that she’s in the basement of some sort of club or bar. At night, she can faintly hear a dull thudding coming from above that at first she thought was construction, but soon realized was music. She shudders at the thought of what’s going on above her, and what being brought to the basement of such a place means for her.

But she decides to believe that at least she’s still on Hokari Prime. She thinks she would know, somehow, if she were on a different planet; years of coming home to Earth after days on planets with slightly different rotations have honed her sense of gravity. And still being on Hokari Prime, despite being a bit terrified, means that there’s still a chance she can get home.

She notices a folded pile of fabric next to her food tray and decides to investigate that before eating what was offered. The fabric turns out to be a pair of pants and she whispers her thanks to whoever brought them to her. Putting them on hurts – she’s stiff and sore and her knee is swollen and purple to the point where she’s genuinely concerned that something may be torn and her attempt at setting what she thought was a dislocation made things worse – but she manages with only a few hissed curses. She pushes the tray toward the back corner of her cell where her sleeping pallet is and awkwardly scoots back toward it. She wraps the blanket, thicker than the one in the first cell and twice as long, around her shoulders and leans against the solid back wall; the floor is dirt, but the other walls are barred. As far as she can tell, this entire section is prison cells. The other occupants ignore her attempts to talk.

Sam picks up the bowl and spoon and starts to eat. The food reminds her of elementary school cafeteria oatmeal. She sighs. At least she hasn’t been beaten since she awoke on the floor, the hood still on her head.

* * *

  
Jack isn’t surprised to find Daniel’s car parked outside Sam’s house. He pulls his truck behind the car and walks up to Sam’s front door through the snow beginning to dust the sidewalk. He pauses for a moment, wondering about his answer if Daniel should ask why on earth Jack’s here, but figures that Daniel can’t possibly have a good answer to that question either. He knows where the spare key is and he finally put the copy she gave him years ago on his keychain only a few weeks ago, but the awkwardness of just walking into Sam’s house when Sam _is_ there hasn’t worn off, so he rings the doorbell instead.

Jack’s eyes water at the smell of bleach hanging around Daniel when the other man opens the door. “Going blonde, are we?”

Daniel rolls his eyes and steps aside. “Fridge,” he explains, jerking an elbow in the direction of two overflowing plastic bags waiting to be taken out. He double-bagged, throwing out containers along with contents if it looked like it might degrade within the next ten thousand years. They’ve saved the planet a few times – Earth owes him one.

Jack hoists the black garbage bags and wonders whether the one in his right hand will hold for the time it takes to walk out to the trash cans.

“Walk quickly,” Daniel suggests, his head already back in the fridge.

Jack’s pretty sure the inside of Sam’s fridge hasn’t been that clean probably since she bought it, if ever, but doesn’t comment on his way past Daniel. He’s never understood the bleach-the-entire-house idea as therapy, leaning more towards drinking-too-heavily and avoiding-the-world himself, but to each his own. “She’s alive,” he says, leaning on the counter next to the open refrigerator door.

Daniel leans back on his heels, torn between frowning at a spot of something that may actually be part of the appliance and frowning at Jack. “I know,” he says, choosing to pick at the spot with his thumbnail and avoid looking at Jack.

Jack shakes his head. Daniel doesn’t sound convincing and even if he did, Jack can tell that Daniel’s conviction is beginning to get worn down as the days since they last saw Sam start creeping above double digits. “Carter’s still alive, Daniel.”

Giving up on the mysterious spot, and deciding that he’ll cover it up with a jar of jelly he knows Sam used exactly once but won’t go bad anytime in the foreseeable future, Daniel gives the shelves a final rub down with a wet cloth and starts putting food back in. “I know,” he says again, accepting the cans of Diet Coke Jack hands him from the counter and carefully placing them in the door of the fridge. “I just…” he exhales sharply and decides that the fridge looks painfully bare, but at least it’s clean now. “I can’t stop thinking about what they might be doing to her.”

“Try,” Jack suggests, unhelpfully.

“I have,” Daniel says smartly, “it hasn’t worked. Why else do you think I’ve been cleaning her house for the past…” _two hours_ is silenced by Jack’s lips forcefully on his. It’s an awkward position with Daniel kneeling on the floor and Jack leaning over, gripping the counter for support, and they break apart quickly. “What the hell?” They’ve kissed before, certainly, but always with Sam around and usually when at least one of the three of them is naked or well on their way to being naked; now that he thinks about it, Daniel finds it odd that Jack will fuck him but not kiss him unless there’s an end goal in mind. An analysis for another time, he realizes, given that Jack is staring at him with darkened eyes and he can feel both their arousals beginning to stir. He stands and bumps the refrigerator door shut with his hip.

“Shut up, Daniel,” Jack says.

In that moment, Daniel realizes that Jack cares for Sam a lot more than he’s been letting on and that this thing between the three of them isn’t just about sex anymore, if it ever was.

He leans in and kisses Jack, soft and tender until he picks up on Jack’s sense of need and deepens the kiss, letting Jack take over. They trip over each other and shoes and furniture but somehow manage to lose all of their clothes by the time they reach the bedroom. Jack’s hand is warm on Daniel’s cock and it all feels weird without Sam there to encourage them; without her soft fingers on Daniel’s chest, one hand teasing his nipple while the other searches the drawer for the bottle of lube, her concentration lost when Jack slides a finger into her and she has to take a moment to gasp before nipping Daniel’s earlobe and asking, huskily, if they mind if she sits over there and watches. Daniel drops to his knees, shaking his head to clear it of the memory, and takes Jack’s cock into his mouth, trying to experience the moment instead of the past.

Jack groans and gently cups the back of Daniel’s head with his hand. This isn’t how he wants it to end tonight, but Daniel’s mouth is warm and wet and it’s okay if they stay this way for a bit. They’ve done this before but Jack finds it odd without Sam. He certainly knows the mechanics of how this works and he knows that the two of them are perfectly capable of making it good without her, but there’s another level she adds that he can’t find in just the personal touches of her bedroom. He taps Daniel’s shoulder and pulls him up off his knees, spinning him around so he can push Daniel onto the bed. Daniel smirks and grabs a condom and the bottle of lube from the bedside drawer.

“How do you want it?” Jack asks as he rolls the condom onto his cock, his voice gravelly with arousal. He pops the top on the lube and spreads some over his fingers.

Daniel rolls onto his stomach and gets on his knees. They might have to do laundry, but he doesn’t really care. A groan falls from his lips as Jack’s slick fingers press against him, gently sliding inside of him. He drops his head onto the pillow in front of him; it smells like Sam.

Jack pulls his fingers out and nudges Daniel’s ass with his cock. “You ready?” He waits for Daniel’s nod before pushing forward, his moan getting lost with Daniel’s.

It almost seems wrong, doing this without Sam. She should be here, underneath Daniel, or in the chair in the corner with her legs spread, teasing herself as she watches the two of them. But she’s not, and maybe because they both know it doesn’t seem right is what makes it okay.

* * *

  
Jack nods at General Hammond, come to send them off. Daniel had had an epiphany after they’d collapsed onto Sam’s bed, exhausted. Jack hadn’t paid attention to the details as the other man scrambled for his pants and gestured for Jack to do the same, but it had eventually led to an official reason for them to go back to the planet and look for Sam. He palms the butt of his gun and nods. “General.” The wormhole whooshes open behind him.

“Officially, this tour has been scheduled to reassure us of the Hokari security features and that they are doing everything in their power to find her. You three are to listen and learn. Unofficially…”

“Find Sam,” Daniel finishes.

Hammond nods. “SG-1,” he winces; the complete team doesn’t stand before him. “You have a go.”

* * *

  
Sam wakes to the sound of boots clanging angrily on the metal floor of the hallway outside. She remains still, pretending to be asleep in the hope that they’ll keep walking and pass her by. The steps change to dull thudding when they hit the dirt of the cells and stop right in front of her. She tries to keep her breathing even, glad that she chose to curl up in the back corner where shadows could conceal that she’s never been very good at feigning sleep.

The door opens and the owner of the boots stomps inside. He pauses in the light cast by the hallway and Sam swallows: it’s Driva. She’d taken comfort that she hadn’t been forced to share space with him since she’d been moved; he’d been meaner each time she’d seen him, hitting harder, cutting deeper, and it’s his fault she can’t move her knee. But over the past week, while she’s been focusing on lying still and not moving her leg, he’s walked by her cell two or three times a day, usually with a few other men who look at her the way she looked at her bike before she bought it.

She scrambles and pushes herself as far back in the cell as she can get. The motion brings tears to her eyes. He snarls at her.

“You are proving difficult to sell,” he spits out. He bends over and rips her pants and underwear off with one sharp pull; his hands brush harshly against her injured knee and she can’t hold back a whimper. She kicks upward with her good leg, but it’s sloppy and he easily dodges out of the way. He punches her for her efforts and she spits blood onto the pallet beneath her. “And I think someone should have a taste. You’ve been so much trouble.”

Sam sets her jaw and tries to angle herself better so she can trip him, maybe crawl out of the cell: he left the door open. But Driva anticipates her movement and steps on her good leg, trapping it against the floor. He quickly grasps her flailing hands and ties them to the metal bars.


	5. converted thieves

Ito stands on the steps of the imposing Capitol Building. “Technically, you are here because I am giving you a tour of the city to display our security measures to reassure you that we are doing all we can to find your colleague. However, I am very distracted with an upcoming cultural summit with the Hakaan and should I forget to ensure that you are behind me in a crowded market, I cannot be held responsible for your actions or any actions taken toward you.”

Jack figures that’s about as good as a wink and a smirk he’s going to get from the man. “Yeah. We get lost, it’s not your fault. We find Carter and beat up some people who are holding her, also not your fault. Lead on.” Jack gestures for Ito to start the tour that took four days – and a threat to call up the Asgard, even if they couldn’t technically do anything – to convince War Minister Kríka was necessary. “You got a plan?” He mutters under his breath to Daniel. Hearing Sam’s name shouted very loudly inside his head, Jack winces and covers his ear. “Okay, _ow_. That’s a bad plan.”

“Why is that a bad plan?”

“Because shouting is _obvious_ and I am _not_ wandering around this city playing Marco Polo.”

“What is ‘Marco Polo’?”

“It’s a kid’s game, Teal’c,” Daniel starts, “you usually play it in a pool. One person closes their eyes, the other kids scatter and move around. Whoever’s ‘It’ shouts ‘Marco,’ the other kids shout ‘Polo.’ The goal is to tag someone else to be It and figuring out where they are based on what it sounds like. But of course the other kids have their eyes open and can tell when the person who’s It is coming toward them and move.”

Teal’c raises an eyebrow. “How is this an effective training tool?”

“It’s not,” Jack says firmly, interrupting the start of Daniel’s lecture on the actual Marco Polo.

They follow Ito in silence, listening to the Hokari’s well-intentioned explanation of the city’s security forces and what the Ministry is doing as a result of Sam’s kidnapping to investigate the obvious infiltration in their own government; they know Ito doesn’t believe a word he’s saying and that it’s just for show. Jack picks up tidbits here and there and cringes at Ito’s mention of the booming prostitution black market, willing his mind to absolutely not go there but it ignores him; Daniel’s does as well, and Teal’c’s normally-stoic expression falters for a moment. Mostly he doesn’t pay attention: he’s listening for Sam instead. The people they pass on the street expertly ignore their presence while simultaneously judging them as different, inferior. He leaves the paying attention part to Daniel and nods at Teal’c; even though they’re escorted by a government official, he senses that they could disappear just like Sam did without too much fuss.

Ito steadily guides them into shadier-looking areas of the city until even Daniel is only halfway listening to the explanation of the Hokari economic system that he asked for. He doesn’t need to be able to read the signs in the windows to he’d leave this part of town immediately if he were on Earth. He looks up at the tall buildings and their flickering neon signs and knows that if they find Sam here, it will not be good. He also knows that, given everything, this is probably their best bet for finding Sam, so he sidesteps a body sleeping in the street and kicks off a piece of paper that gets stuck to his boot and follows Ito around the corner.

Daniel nearly runs into their guide, who has stopped suddenly, apparently to listen to something no one else can hear. “Ito?”

“We may have found your colleague,” Ito says. “Come with me.”

“Uhm,” Daniel says, lengthening his stride to keep up with Ito as the other man speeds up. “May?” He senses Jack and Teal’c at his back, as anxious as he is. “Oh, _God_ ,” he nearly trips over his own feet, Sam’s voice suddenly back in his head.

She’s screaming.

Jack’s eyes widen, hearing her too. “Run,” he orders Ito and breaks into a full sprint after the Hokari, winding down back alleys Jack wouldn’t dream of visiting even on his own planet.

* * *

  
Sam struggles against the rope holding her to the bars, fighting Driva as best she can. DANIEL! She hopes against hope that he’s near enough to hear and a sob catches in her throat. Jack! Please, God, anyone! Driva drops his own pants to the ground and Sam spits, trying to hit him in the eye but missing by what might as well be a mile. He laughs at her. “Get away from me,” she threatens, but her voice wavers. She screams for help, hoping that someone, anyone will come.

Two shots ring out, echoed by a staff weapon blast, and Driva drops to the floor in front of her, blood dripping from the wounds in his head and chest, his back smoking with the heat of a charred flesh wound.

Sam scrambles for purchase against the floor, pushing herself back into the corner even further, as far away from the dead man as she can get while still tied to the bars of the cell.

Time slows down as the three men look at her, taking in her appearance: naked from the waist down, face and stomach covered in bruises and cuts, bleeding, a knee colored an angry shade of purple-red, eyes wide and scared.

“Jesus,” Daniel speaks first and time speeds up to its normal pace as he rushes forward, hurrying to untie her. They don’t have much time before someone comes to investigate the noise or the dead men they left in the hallway, and Daniel motions to the others that he has Sam and they should start finding a way out of here. He quickly gives up untying the knots and slides his knife under the fabric securing her right wrist and pulls. It gives instantly and no sooner has the ripped fabric fallen to the floor than Sam has her arm around Daniel, holding him close, as if checking that he’s real.

“Hang on,” he says, trying to maneuver himself around her so he doesn’t hurt her worse or make her let him go as he awkwardly cuts through the other restraint. “You’re okay,” he whispers, sheathing the knife again and wrapping his arms around her back, “you’re safe.” He can’t tell if she’s crying or in shock or both and he tries to listen to her thoughts to find out exactly what the hell happened, but all he hears is ohgodohgodohgodnononogodohgod. “Sam,” he says firmly against her cheek, “you are safe. No one will hurt you. Do you understand?” Keeping one arm around her as best he can, he shrugs out of his coat and carefully drapes it around her shoulders.

The barest of nods. “I can’t walk,” she whispers hoarsely. “God, Daniel.” She grips his shoulders tighter, trying to melt into him, clutching him, hold onto him as an anchor. Through the roaring sound of her own mind, she hears Jack’s urgent order to get the hell out of there, and then there’s another set of arms behind her, lifting her away from Daniel. She fights to stay with him even as her energy fades.

“Major Carter,” Teal’c says gently, dropping his hands away from her, “I will carry you to the Stargate. We are going home. Is that alright?”

She pauses and then nods. Being lifted causes her stomach to roil, but she swallows and it settles. She tucks her head against Teal’c’s shoulder and clutches at the edges of Daniel’s jacket as she closes her eyes, not wishing to see the last of the place that held her for so long. Feeling safe in Teal’c’s strong arms, she allows herself to pass out.

“She is in need of a hospital,” Ito says once the four are safely inside transport pod with the doors closed.

“Shut up and drive,” Jack orders as Daniel lays a blanket on the floor of the pod and Teal’c reverently lays her on top of it. “Fuck,” he curses, taking inventory on her visible injuries. He’s relieved that the bruises on her hips and thighs and throat are only just appearing, but he knows that doesn’t necessarily mean that they got there in time. While Daniel covers her with another blanket, Jack reaches over to stroke her unmarred cheek. “Why are we slowing down?”

Ito turns from his position at the controls. “She is in need of a hospital. Do not argue. Our medical technology is far more advanced than yours. We can do more to help her here, now, than your doctors could in six months.”

Jack stands up, nearly smacking his head on a grab bar by the ceiling. “And I suppose your hospital doctors will help much like your university doctors helped.” He ignores Teal’c calling for him to perhaps calm down and see what is offered. Daniel’s thinking the exact thing Jack is, though even angrier, which Jack didn’t think possible.

Ito shakes his head. “No. My wife is a doctor. She will come to the pod. You will not be separated again.”

“Jack, she’s going into shock and I don’t know what kind of internal damage there is. I don’t think she can afford to wait.” Daniel can’t get his mind to focus on anything helpful, so he smoothes her hair away from her face and tucks the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

With a reluctant nod, Jack glares at Ito. “Fine. But one doctor, and we stay here. That’s the deal.”

Ito nods and navigates the pod to an unassuming door down a questionable-looking alley. “It is the back entrance to this sector’s hospital,” he explains. A woman dressed in blue with a white overcoat slams the door open and rushes out, a bulky bag slung across her chest. “My wife. Koro.”

“Move,” she orders and Jack sidesteps as Daniel scrambles backward. She pulls back the top blanket and hisses. “Are they dead?” She looks at the four men in the pod.

Teal’c nods once while Jack says “Most of them.”

She looks at Daniel, who has suddenly turned an impressive shade of green. “Out,” she points to the open door of the pod and pulls out a portable scanner as Daniel stumbles out of the pod to throw up loudly outside.

Jack shoots a look at Teal’c, who quickly follows after Daniel: they’ve learned their lesson.

“Whoa, whoa. What is that?” Jack frowns at a metal contraption Koro pulls out of her bag.

“Her knee is badly injured,” Koro says, snapping the device around Sam’s leg. Three tiny green lights begin to blink. “This provides medication throughout the healing process and forces stability.” She attaches a band to Sam’s arm; when it clicks into place, blue lights flash around it. “This is for the infection,” she points at an ugly cut on Sam’s shoulder, oozing something in a color that matches Daniel’s face. With expert ease, she slips an IV into Sam’s other arm. “Rehydration,” she explains.

Jack blinks. “No funky beeping thing for water?”

Koro stares up at him blankly. “Ito tells me you wish to leave as soon as possible. This is the fastest method of rehydration.” She digs through her bag and comes up with a packet of pills. “For him,” she gestures at Daniel and then, at an angle Daniel can’t see, her stomach. “This is all I can do in the time you allow me. You were wise to stop. Your friend will recover.” She drags the blanket back up over Sam. “Keep her warm and try to keep her still,” she directs the last to her husband with a meaningful look.

Jack smiles in spite of himself; wives nag husbands about driving on every planet.

Daniel catches her hand before she leaves the pod. “Thank you,” he says.

Koro nods. “You are welcome.” She pulls her arm from his grasp and steps out of the way of the pod’s automatic doors.

* * *

  
“General!” Jack shouts into his radio while Daniel punches in the GDO code. “You’d better have a med team meet us at the gate. And clear the room.”

 _“Understood. Come on home, SG-1.”_

Teal’c goes through first, Sam shivering in his arms.

“Thank you,” Daniel says to Ito, knowing how much the other man risked by helping them. “Thank you.”

Ito smiles. “You are welcome. Though I wish it had not been necessary.”

“Come on, Daniel!” Jack shouts from the steps of the gate, unwilling to leave until Daniel’s gone through.

“Go to your…” Ito trails off, “friend?”

Daniel furrows his brow, and then realizes Ito can sense what Sam is to him. “Close enough.” He smiles his thanks once more before turning and running to the gate and through the wormhole.

* * *

  
Sam forces herself to swim to the surface of the drug-induced fog. She vaguely remembers Driva, and then Daniel and Jack and Teal’c, and then she’s pretty sure she passed out. But her brain had been concocting all sorts of dreams and hallucinations to get her through the seemingly endless nights. When a rambling wake up wake up, I hope we got there in time, no, no, don’t even go there, at least she’s alive wake up, Sam in Daniel’s voice rolls through her head, she’s even more certain it was all a hallucination. She’d been entertaining rescue scenarios for a few days; the part of her brain that’s still functioning logically assumes that this is the way her body has chosen to succumb to whatever it’s going to succumb to. It’s a good way to go, she thinks, believing that her friends have rescued her. It’s comforting. And she’s missed Daniel, even if he does sound a little more panicked than she’d like.

Jack’s voice reaches her ears, demanding information, and now she’s positive she’s hallucinating. She blinks slowly, hoping that with the auditory hallucinations comes some nice visuals and she isn’t disappointed to see a blurry Daniel on one side of her and a blurry Jack on the other. She squints at the foot of the bed and makes out a blurry Teal’c.

The lights are bright, really bright, and she half-closes her eyes against it.

The hand clasping hers is definitely, definitely Daniel’s. She’s been under the influence of a lot of alien drugs over the past seven years, but she’s never before imagined physical contact. There’s a first time for everything, though.

She’s awake. She’s awake! Jack!

Interactive hallucinations are new, but not unheard of.

“Sam. You’re not seeing things. We’re really here,” Daniel says, squeezing her hand a little tighter. “You’re really safe.”

“You’re a hallucination,” she says hoarsely, “you’re supposed to say that.”

“Carter!” Jack leans in, almost touching his nose to hers. “We are real. All of us. The infirmary, Doc Fraiser, all of it.”

Sam nods slowly as the rest of the room comes into focus. There’s something indefinably _real_ about the way Daniel sounds in her head. “Okay,” she says. She notices Janet loitering intently in the corner of the tiny space enclosed by the curtain around her bed, obviously pushed out of the way when she awoke. She offers her friend a weak smile before looking at each of the three men surrounding her bed. “Thank you,” she says sincerely, earning three variations on _you’re welcome_ and three very pleased smiles.

“Alright,” Janet says, “she needs her rest. Out.”

Jack pats Sam’s uninjured shoulder and Teal’c offers her hand a squeeze. Daniel waits until the other two have left before placing a kiss on her forehead and following them out.

“Hey, Janet.”

Janet brushes a lock of hair off of Sam’s forehead and purses her lips. “You know I have to do this.”

Sam nods, wincing as she bends her left leg so her foot can rest in the stirrup. She shifts her right leg out of the way as best she can and stares up at the ceiling.

“Sam,” Janet says from the foot of the bed, pulling on gloves, “is there anything I should know?”

Sam shakes her head. “No.”

Skeptical, given Sam’s injuries and the report given by the rest of SG-1, Janet places a gloved hand over Sam’s. “Sam?”

“No, Janet. Just get this over with, please.”

* * *

  
Sam closes her eyes and drops her head as the hot water sluices over her shoulders. Someone had wiped away most of the blood and dirt on her body while she was unconscious in the infirmary, but the courtesy hadn’t been thorough nor had it extended to shampoo; she’d waited a patient fifteen minutes for the water in the base shower to get above lukewarm before giving up and going home. Daniel had been waiting for her outside the locker room, keys in hand; he and Jack had taken her car back to her house once it was clear she was going to be the kind of fine that got her released from the infirmary a few days later but not the kind of fine that’s allowed to drive. She’d spent the trip home with her head resting against the cold window, exhausted.

She looks up at the muffled sound of her name and a soft knock on the door. “Yeah.” The door opens.

“Jack just called. He’s picking up a change of clothes and he’ll be on his way over.”

She nods and reaches for the body wash. “Okay.” She winces as the dull ache in her shoulder gets worse when she starts to soap up the washcloth. “Daniel?”

Daniel hisses when he steps into the shower and gets his first good look at how badly she was beaten. The purple bruising patterned across her ribs stands out against her pale skin, and that’s only the beginning. Don’t tell me it looks worse than it is.

Sam smiles and hands the sudsy washcloth to Daniel, awkwardly switching spots with him so he can duck under the water. “Jack’s coming over?” She turns, allowing him access to her back.

“Mmhm,” Daniel runs the washcloth over her shoulders, “that okay?” At her silence, he drapes the washcloth over the bar and settles his hands on her hips. “Sam?”

She leans backward into him and sighs. “Yeah. I just...it’s gonna be a while.”

Daniel’s brow furrows and he wishes for a noun in her sentence. “Oh,” he says, finally getting it with the assistance of a few choice images from Sam’s tired mind. He slides his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her shoulder. “That’s okay,” he assures her, lacing his fingers with hers when she brings her hands up to cover his. He holds her close for a moment before letting go so he can finish washing her back, glad to see her shoulder almost completely healed.

Sam closes her eyes and allows Daniel to direct her back underneath the water to rinse off before he starts on her hair. She opens one eye. “That’s conditioner.” When Daniel looks at her in confusion, she grins. “Goes on second.”

* * *

  
Jack stomps on the thick rug just inside Sam’s front door, trying to get rid of as much snow as possible so he doesn’t accidentally track it into her house. “Aren’t you cold?” He shivers just looking at Sam in her shorts and sweatshirt outfit.

She shakes her head and awkwardly makes her way to the couch on her crutches. “Not really. And this thing,” she gestures to the brace, “doesn’t exactly come off.” After a plethora of scans and examining it to figure out if it had a release mechanism, she and Janet decided that it’s designed to stay on until everything’s healed. Janet thinks it’s a genius way to ensure that unruly patients get all of the necessary medication and don’t aggravate the injury by doing something they shouldn’t. Sam finds it _really_ annoying, even if its timing releasing the painkillers is uncannily accurate. She’s had to stick a piece of duct tape over the blinking lights, eerily bright in the darkness.

“Oh, hey Jack,” Daniel says, coming out of Sam’s bedroom, also looking freshly showered. “How is it out?”

Jack bends over to untie his boots. “White.” He gestures with his elbow to the bags he set on the floor. “I brought food.”

Daniel picks up the bags and starts setting out the boxes of takeout. “Sam? Do you have a dinner preference?”

Sam lifts her leg and sets it on the coffee table. The antibiotic cocktail Janet’s given her on top of whatever the leg brace is pumping out makes her stomach turn at the thought of anything Jack could’ve picked up. “There’s a box of saltines somewhere. Maybe some orange juice?”

“You feel that great, huh?” Jack throws her a smile as he toes off his boots. “I found something of yours,” he says quietly, padding over the carpet to the couch. He adjusts the straps of her combat bracelet and slides it off his wrist, offering it to her.

She smiles up at him and takes the bracelet. “Thank you,” she says softly, tightening it around her wrist. She’d spent a lot of time touching the spot where it should have been.

“You’re welcome,” he says and gives her shoulder a supportive squeeze before joining Daniel in the kitchen to find her box of crackers.

* * *

  
Getting Sam into bed is an endeavor. Whatever magical drug is inside the brace hasn’t worked any magic on her two broken and three bruised ribs; the brace itself, though lightweight and not nearly as bulky as it could be, doesn’t allow her to bend her leg at all. They try once before realizing that they haven’t pulled back the covers and she nearly topples over on the second attempt, trying to balance on her good leg which is bruised and sore like the rest of her. Jack picks her up by the waist and sets her on the bed.

“Well,” she says, finally in bed, “that was dignified.” She braces her hands behind her and scoots backward to the center, deciding that she’s the injured one and the other two can figure out how to sleep around her.

Daniel joins her first and waits for Jack to climb in and turn off the light before he reaches down and pulls up the blankets over all three of them. He’d given Sam a hard time about going for the queen sized bed when she upgraded a few years ago but like this, with her injured and the two of them moving carefully around her, they wouldn’t fit in anything less. Not without someone possibly falling off in the middle of the night.

Jack helps her flip over onto her stomach and keeps hold of her hand when she rests it on his chest. He smiles when she has to grab Daniel’s arm and tug to convince him to move closer so she can lay her head on his shoulder. They fuss for a few minutes about whose arm goes where, which results in not a little bit of giggling from Sam followed by an _ow, don’t make me laugh_ , but they eventually sort out the tangle of limbs and settle down into silence. Jack’s fingers run into Daniel’s more than once as they trail over Sam’s back and shoulders, both of them ensuring for themselves, despite Janet’s reassurances, that Sam is here and whole and okay.

“I wasn’t raped,” she says, an answer to a question she knows neither of them would dare ask aloud but one that neither has been able to stop thinking. She hadn’t felt comfortable saying it earlier with the lights on, during dinner or while mocking the nightly news coverage of the snowstorm currently roaring outside. Through the bars of her cell, she’d seen women returned, crying or fighting or in shock or unconscious, and tossed into their own metal cages while the men who escorted them discussed _testing the merchandise_. She’d spent one night with her arm snaked through the bars, holding tight to the hand of a girl who couldn’t be more than sixteen and who was gone when she woke up in the morning.

She knows she’s incredibly lucky her team showed up when they did. She slams a mental cage down on the next thought – what would have happened if they’d been even two minutes later. She’s not ready to deal with that. Not yet.

“Sam,” Daniel whispers, brushing his fingers through her hair.

She shakes her head, knowing that he wants to but doesn’t quite believe her, not when she’s showing him what happened to everyone around her and so suddenly cut off a train of thought. “Daniel,” she struggles to push herself halfway up so she can look him in the eye, feeling Jack’s hand strong and warm on her back. She knows they had both been in the room when Janet had catalogued Sam’s injuries for General Hammond, but Janet hadn’t wanted to check without Sam being awake. _No signs of sexual assault_ appears only in a report that neither one of them felt it necessary to read. “You can hear every thought in my head. Do you really think I could keep this from you? I wasn’t raped.”

This, at least, is the truth. And given how hard it is to keep them from knowing how she feels about what did happen, there’s no way she could hide from them if it had been worse.

Jack gently rubs his fingertips against the skin of her lower back, exposed when she shifted to look at Daniel. “Good,” he says quietly and presses a kiss to her shoulder.

Sam smiles softly at Jack. She rests her forehead against his, closing her eyes.

“I’m really glad you’re okay, Sam.”

Daniel’s voice pulls her back. She brushes a kiss across his lips, just enough to say _so am I_ , and settles her head on his chest once again. She hadn’t allowed herself to sleep much at the end, wanting to be awake if so she could fight the entire way, and someone was always coming by to see her or check on vitals while she was in the infirmary. Exhausted, she closes her eyes and falls asleep, hearing Daniel’s heartbeat and feeling Jack’s.

* * *

  
“Major Carter,” Teal’c says, tilting his head as he comes upon her sitting on the floor outside of his quarters. He wonders how she got down there on her own with her knee still immobile. He offers her a hand to help her standing.

Sam grasps his hand and lets him pull her upwards; she grimaces, the concrete floor a little too hard for her butt’s liking and her knee hurts apparently because it can. She’d come to the base this morning with Daniel because Janet wanted to check her injuries, but hadn’t thought through the fact that she’d be stuck here until someone could drive her home. She knows Daniel or Jack would both drop everything and take her, but she doesn’t want to bother them. “Thanks,” she smiles as he opens the door and gestures for her to enter. She instantly feels herself relax in the comforting, dim light of his quarters.

Teal’c turns and lights a selection of candles. When he’s finished, he finds her standing in the exact same position by the door. He isn’t privy to all that happened to her while she was captured – he has read Doctor Fraiser’s medical report, though Major Carter’s report is still forthcoming – but he’d seen her injuries and the fear in her eyes and the decision to shoot the man standing over her had been part instinct, part rage. He’s known for some time now that their telepathy has meant that she has grown closer with Colonel O’Neill and Daniel Jackson and that they likely know far more than he ever will. But Teal’c does not mind, because Major Carter is alive and standing in front of him.

“I don’t have a way to get home,” she explains, motioning to her leg. Janet hasn’t cleared her to drive yet and even if she had, there’s no point in trying. She taught herself years ago to drive with her left foot in case something like this happened, but her current car is a stick shift and anyway, Daniel drove. “And I can’t focus in my lab. Do you mind if I stay here until Daniel’s ready to go?”

“Of course.” Teal’c pulls out a chair for her, knowing she won’t want to sit on the floor. It’s a comfortable chair, one he keeps for guests; the one that came supplied with the room is tucked into the back of the closet. His eyebrows furrow when she doesn’t immediately move to sit. “Is there something wrong, Major Carter?”

Sam shakes her head and bites her lip, unprepared for the gratitude at the simple act of bringing her a chair. It’s more than the chair, though, and she knows that. But she swallows, hard, and pushes her emotions back down; Jack and Daniel have been so sensitive to her lately that any wave of strong emotion sends them running for her, which has caused Janet no small amount of consternation whenever she pushes on something that hurts Sam and finds herself surrounded by two worried members of SG-1. She doesn’t want them breaking down the door to Teal’c’s quarters.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, lifting her gaze from the chair to his eyes, “for coming for me.” It’s ridiculous, she knows; SG-1 doesn’t thank each other for things like that. It’s a given that they will be rescued and nobody ever has to ask or be grateful for it. But she does, anyway.

Teal’c nods and steps forward, embracing her. The Tau’ri concept of hugging had caught him off-guard at first. Before becoming First Prime, he’d embraced his friends on Chulak, and certainly his wife and son, but it was either as greeting or a sign of intense love, neither of which was appropriate for the first time Major (then Captain) Carter had wrapped her arms around his waist. The villagers had simply raised the fourth wall of the first barn to be built after years of Goa’uld rule and the cheering and excitement of the village had overwhelmed her with the need to hug someone. He hadn’t known what to do then and she’d awkwardly smiled and apologized and hugged Daniel Jackson instead. Years later, he understands much better.

Sam sniffles and tucks her head under his chin, bringing her arms around his back. She remembers being terrified when arms had tried to pull her away from Daniel and instantly calmed when she heard Teal’c’s voice in her ear. She knows she’d passed out after that and Jack occasionally teases her for thinking they were all an hallucination, but Teal’c’s strong arms feel just as safe now as they did then.

“I am glad you are well,” Teal’c says softly once she pulls back from him. She has a long way to go before she is herself again, but he knows she will make it.

She smiles and grasps the edges of the chair and slowly lowers into it. Teal’c brings over the matching footstool and she links her hands underneath her leg and lifts, gently settling her leg onto the stool. She brings her other leg up to cross over it and leans back in the chair.

Teal’c settles onto a pillow on the floor for kel’no’reem, but watches her for a few moments before beginning. She produces a book from her jacket pocket and leans toward the light as she begins to read.


	6. come here when you sleepwalk

One week later, the brace releases its lock around her knee. Sam sighs with relief at being able to bend her knee again, though frowns when she realizes that the thing _still_ won’t come off. Janet merely shrugs and tells her that her knee isn’t quite healed enough to warrant taking it off yet anyway and reminds her that if they were using their own technology, she’d still be hopping around, unable to bend the joint. Sam rolls her eyes and reminds Janet that if they were using their own technology, she’d be able to at least take it off every so often and, more importantly, wear pants without everything looking all bulky or wearing a size too big.

“Oh, like Daniel minds you hopping around in shorts?” Janet teases, stealing a fry from Sam’s plate.

Sam blushes, which deflates her pout somewhat. “I do not _hop_ ,” she argues, even though that’s exactly what she did for two weeks. “And, no. He doesn’t really mind it.” She doesn’t think Jack minds too much either, but Janet doesn’t know about him and she’s not about to tell her. She figures that the _under the influence of aliens_ argument Jack floated by them one night after a little too much beer and an ill-advised _JAG_ marathon would cover one, maybe three, isolated incidents. Not two months. “What?”

“You have that look.”

“What look?” She really hopes that there isn’t a facial expression for _by the way, I’m also fucking my CO_.

“Sam, you’re still injured. I know I can’t really tell you not to have sex, but…”

Sam folds her arms on the table and rests her forehead against them. “God, Janet.” She lifts her head. “I still need help getting out of bed in the morning. There’s no way.” She feels her cheeks flush when Janet lifts a mocking eyebrow at her. “How’s Cassie?” She quickly changes the subject and pokes at what little of her french fries Janet hasn’t stolen while her friend groans about the drama of high school, boys and winter formals.

* * *

  
The brace finally releases completely ten days later.

It takes three more days for Sam to finally lose her patience with Daniel and Jack and their tendency to treat her like she’ll break if they touch her too much.

She pushes Daniel up against the refrigerator and kisses him hard, thrusting her tongue into his mouth the moment she feels him relax against her. Jack comes up behind her, dish duty forgotten, and slides his hands under her shirt to cup her breasts. He sucks at a spot behind her ear that makes her knees go weak.

Daniel settles his hands on her hips and spins her around, catching the hem of her shirt to lift it over her head before her lips connect with Jack’s. He unclasps her bra and slides the straps down over her shoulders, tossing it aside to land with her shirt somewhere near the sink. When he trails his fingers up her arms and over to her breasts, he finds Jack’s hands already there so he moves downward, deftly unbuttoning her jeans and sliding the zipper down.

Sam gasps against Jack’s mouth and tries to push her breasts further into his hands while rubbing herself against Daniel’s fingers. Her head rolls back onto Daniel’s shoulder as his thumb rubs circles over her clit in time with his fingers sliding into her. Jack grins and sucks one of her nipples into his mouth, trailing his hand down to meet Daniel’s.

Sam comes in what she thinks is record time, unsure whose name is dragged out of her mouth as she grabs onto Jack’s shoulder for support. “Bedroom,” she breathes.

* * *

  
“So,” Sam starts, awkwardly, drawing unbalanced equations on Jack’s chest as Daniel’s hands map patterns over her side. She realizes she doesn’t actually know where she wants to go with her thoughts. “Nevermind,” she says. She’s not sure she’s quite ready to talk about it, but it was all she could think about today while she was home alone, finally writing up her mission report. She figures if she doesn’t tell them now, something will slip out.

Daniel and Jack share a look across Sam and she hears them wondering what she’d started to say. And then their thoughts go silent, settling on the same conclusion. Daniel’s hand stills on her hip.

“Sam,” Jack says quietly.

There’s so much said with just her name; concern, a warning, hurt, fear. Sam shakes her head. She knows she could tell them that she’s not ready and that would be the end of it, but something tugs at her insides and threatens to break if she doesn’t speak. “I wasn’t raped,” she says emphatically. “But it was close,” she whispers, remembering Driva’s fingers harsh against her skin as he ripped off her pants. “You saw how close,” she says even quieter, barely even a breath. She realizes she doesn’t know exactly what they saw – the urge to shoot was probably instinct – but the memory is at the forefront of her mind before she can do anything about it. Even if they hadn’t seen everything before, they have now.

She closes her eyes against the memory, but only sees Driva standing in front of her, pushing his own pants to the ground, his hands rough in her hair as his feet kicked her legs apart. She opens her eyes again and watches Jack scoot as close as he can and clasp the hand that she’d been using to draw on him. She rests her head on his chest and laces her fingers with his as he rubs her palm with his thumb. Daniel curls around her and drapes his arm across her stomach, holding her tight. She catches Daniel’s hand, squeezing his and Jack’s simultaneously.

Holding onto them suddenly seems very important.

Daniel brushes a kiss against her shoulder. He’s known that she’s been keeping something hidden, but hasn’t pushed her on it. But now that she’s told them, it’s like she can’t stop the images from coming. Mixed in with flashes of Driva trying to force her mouth open are fists flying at her and a knife glinting against her skin. Daniel catches Jack’s eye and sees barely-contained rage on his face. If they run into the Venkati again, they’ll both be out for blood.

Sam opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a choked sob.

Daniel blinks. He can count the number of times he’s seen her cry on one hand, but she’s never held back the tears when they need to come. She shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut and Daniel makes out a protested Jack through the chaotic mess of her mind. He looks over her shoulder at the other man who nods, clearly understanding something Daniel isn’t.

Jack hooks his finger under Sam’s chin and gently lifts her head. He waits for her to open her eyes and then smiles softly and kisses her forehead, wiping away the single tear she can’t hold back. “You’ll be okay,” he promises before sliding out of the bed. He tugs the blanket up around their waists. Picking up his scattered clothing, he quickly makes his way out of the room and shuts the door behind him. As he pulls on his pants – his boxers, he realizes, are somewhere still in the bedroom – the sheer amount of emotion washing over him almost makes him turn around, climb back into bed and wrap his arms around Sam.

But he doesn’t.

Jack pauses with his hand on the front door, starting to hear sniffles from the bedroom and it takes everything he has to open the door and lock it behind him. He’ll call in the morning.

Sam waits to hear the front door shut before turning in Daniel’s embrace. She hides her face in his shoulder, unable to hold back her tears any longer. His arms automatically come up around her, one warm hand splayed out across her back, the other tangled in her hair, holding her to him. She clutches at his shoulders, holding on as she sobs.

Daniel holds her tightly, stroking her back and hair. He gasps, everything flowing into him at once. Feelings, images, words, memories. Fear, danger, force-shields and electrocution, hulking shadows with fists the size of bricks, death, struggling to breathe under a thick hood. Pulling a threadbare blanket closer, freezing, exploding pain, wishing for Daniel (he tightens his arms at that), loneliness, terror, throat hoarse from screaming. Finally left alone, arguments about her worth, pants, still cold, arms jerked upward and tied to bars. One last cry for help.

“Oh God, Sam,” he whispers. He almost understands why she wanted Jack to leave. “You’re safe,” he breathes, feeling her start to panic.

She slowly calms down and eventually only her ragged breathing gives her away. She wiggles until Daniel gets the point and lets go. She rolls off his chest and sits up, grabbing the box of tissues from the nightstand. “Thanks,” she says after blowing her nose a couple of times and throwing the tissue into the basket, missing.

Daniel smiles, sitting up next to her. “You’re welcome.” He rests his arm loosely around her back. “You okay?” It’s a stupid question and he knows it.

Sam leans into him and stares off into space. She sniffles and looks back at Daniel. “I will be.” Her voice is thick and she coughs, trying to clear her throat.

Daniel tilts his head. “If there’s anything I can do.”

Nodding, Sam wipes at her cheeks, brushing away a few new tears. Don’t let me go _._ She doesn’t trust her voice. Daniel opens his arms and, with a watery smile, she scoots over to sit between his legs, her back pressed against his chest. She shivers and Daniel reaches over to pick up a discarded afghan, usually just decoration at the foot of the bed. He wraps it around his back and offers Sam the edges to clutch. Her shivering isn’t entirely because they’re naked and it’s almost winter.

“Think you can sleep?” Daniel asks, once he’s watched the digital clock on her nightstand cycle through a full hour. She’s still healing, physically as well as mentally, and Janet’s given him more than a few earfuls about making sure Sam actually sleeps at night.

Sam releases the corners of the afghan and catches Daniel’s hands instead. “No,” she says honestly, too drained to conjure up a lie he’d see right through. “Drawer.”

Daniel slides one hand out from under hers and twists backwards to open the drawer. “You sure?” He digs around until he finds the bottle. He drops a pill into her open hand.

“Yeah,” she tosses the pill into her mouth and dry swallows it. She tucks her feet under the blankets and, taking hold of Daniel’s arm to make sure he comes with her, slides her way underneath the covers. She laces her fingers with his and lets him set a pillow on his arm before she lies down. Daniel spoons around her, holding her just tight enough, and she closes her eyes, feeling his skin against hers.

“Sleep well, Sam,” he whispers, brushing a goodnight kiss against her cheek.

* * *

  
Jack shifts his weight from foot to foot, awkwardly standing in the doorway to Sam’s lab. He hasn’t seen or spoken to her since he left that night and he’s worried. He _had_ called to check in on her, but Daniel had answered her phone in hushed tones and said that she was sleeping and he’d pass on that Jack had called and they’d see him at work on Monday. She looks a little fragile, but she fiddles with the device in front of her with absolute certainty and it’s a real smile she cracks when the thing beeps and opens up.

“Colonel?” She asks, looking up from the device. She’d heard him loitering, and had wanted to give him ample time to figure out if he was going to come in of his own accord but quickly realized that it might be a while if she left him on his own.

He takes a few steps into her lab and pushes the door shut behind him; he catches it before it closes completely, leaving it partly ajar so as to not invite suspicion, but still give them privacy. “How are you?”

She blinks. “Are we Sam and Jack? Or sir and Carter?”

“Depends,” he says, sitting across from her and leaning his elbows on the table, “are they two different answers?”

Sam sighs and sets the blinking device aside. “You know they are, sir.”

“Carter,” he starts, really wishing that he could somehow address both of them at the same time; he can’t, so he settles for the one that he’s sure will be the shorter conversation. “I don’t want you to think you have to hide things from me. In fact, you hiding things from me makes my job harder.”

“I don’t want you to think I can’t do the job, sir.”

He smiles at her. “I have no doubt that you can do the job. But,” he drops the smile and speaks quieter, “I know that it can take time to heal and be…zen with what happened. And that sometimes you don’t know what will set you off until it sets you off. So until you’re zen with it, I need you to tell me if you’re about to go off the deep end or if anything I ask you to do will make you uncomfortable.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow. “Zen, sir?”

“Carter, I’m serious.”

She nods. “Yes, sir. I will.”

“Thank you. Now, Sam. How are you?”

Sam looks away, tears blurring the blinking lights of the machines that line the walls of her lab. She closes her eyes; she’d thought she was done with the tears after a quiet weekend spent in Daniel’s arms without pressure to talk or pretend to be okay. Apparently she was wrong.

Jack reaches across the table and hooks his finger under her chin, gently guiding her back to look at him. “Sam?”

“What took you so long?” she whispers, barely audible in the whirring and beeping that makes up the background noise of her lab and the mountain. She’d been gone a little over three weeks before they found her. He drops his hand from her chin, obviously confused. “To come find me. What the hell took you so long?”

He doesn’t have a good answer to that. He’s not even sure she’s really looking for an answer. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, his voice full of honest regret. “I’m sorry we didn’t get there sooner, Sam.”

She bites her lip and looks away again.

This time, Jack stands up. He walks around the table, stopping in front of her. He waits for her to open her eyes before he takes the final step toward her and wraps his arms around her shoulders. “I’m Jack, you’re Sam,” he whispers into her hair, feeling her still holding back.

“We’re on base,” she whispers shakily, barely holding herself together as she slides off the chair.

“Your security camera hasn’t worked in years,” he says, “no one will know but us.”

She can’t help but smile at that and turns her head into his neck, allowing him to enfold her into a hug. “Thank you.”

* * *

  
Once MacKenzie gives Sam the all-clear, Hammond relents and lets them go offworld. It’s a babysitting mission, all four of them know that, but Hammond can’t afford to have his flagship team down any longer and making sure a mining operation is still running smoothly is as good a place as any to start. If they can handle this, he’ll bump them up to supervising the setup of an archaeological dig and see how it goes from there.

Jack gets bored thirty seconds into Sam’s explanation of how the trinium mine actually works (“Not so much a mine as a processing facility…” she starts and as soon as she mentions purity rates and quantities, he tunes out; she notices, sticks her tongue out at him when he isn’t looking, and shuts up). He leans back against a tree and looks up at the blue, cloudless sky.

Daniel sits down next to him; it’s Sam’s and Teal’c’s turn to walk the perimeter, though the only threats are some squirrel-like creatures and the occasional butterfly. “She’s doing better,” he says.

Jack nods. “I think so.” The days after her meltdown had been rough. The two of them had put a halt to sex once her nightmares had gotten worse, kicking and screaming, sobbing once of them had finally woken her up. Jack had taken her aside and told her, under no uncertain terms and in the voice he usually reserves for giving orders to reluctant lieutenants, that she was to tell them if she didn’t think she was up for it; they’d had trouble reading her true feelings through the tangle of emotions right on the surface. She’d started getting a lot better after that.

“I want to kill them,” Daniel says after a few minutes, sensing Sam far enough away that she won’t be able to hear.

Jack blinks, torn out of his pebble-throwing reverie. “We did,” he reminds Daniel. They may not have killed everyone who hurt Sam, but the three dead guards and the very dead man (Driva, he recalls Sam’s memory; she’s never directly spoken about him to them) ought to have put a dent in the number.

“Not all of them.”

Looking over at Daniel through his sunglasses, Jack’s eyebrows furrow. “Take it easy, Daniel.” He supposes that they are used to getting their way in that manner, always leaving a trail of dead bodies behind when they finally break out of someplace unfortunate, making sure to put a bullet in the brain of someone who caused any of them bodily harm. He wouldn’t mind going back to Hokari Prime and firebombing the building they carried Sam out of, but he’s sure that the Venkati have long vacated that particular corner of hell.

They fall into silence. Jack returns to throwing pebbles and seeing if he can hit a tree twenty feet away. After a few minutes of being annoyed, Daniel puts his book down and joins in.

Sam and Teal’c find them like that an hour later, the unofficial score 12 (Jack) to 8 (Daniel). Sam and Teal’c look at each other, bemused, and proceed to silently pick up rocks and put both scores to shame.

“Dinner?” Jack suggests, ignoring the smug smiles on both their faces.

* * *

  
They eat with the staff of the mine ( _processing facility_ , Sam reminds Jack), who Jack finds to be dreadfully dull people. Geologists, mostly, with one engineer whose chief job appears to be giving things a good thwack when they stop working. There are barracks, but not enough beds (and Jack wants to be away anyway, partly because Sam still has nightmares but also because the processing facility runs all night and is _loud_ and the barracks are right next to it) so they pitch their tents far enough away to be able to ignore the noise but close enough to hear anything go wrong and sprint. Someone turns off the spotlight, a courtesy for those who are sleeping by whoever’s on duty to make sure the thing runs smoothly, and they’re cast into firelight.

Sam leans into Daniel and he drapes his arm around her shoulders, tugging her closer.

Jack looks sideways at Teal’c, checking for a reaction but finding none. He shrugs and intends to ask him about it later. Given the choice between touching one of them and not touching one of them, Sam’s lately leaned towards touching one of them. Despite being cleared, she’s still a little unsteady, seeing shadows and people out of the corner of her eye, waking up expecting to be someplace else, someplace much worse. They help ground her. It concerns him; he knows that one day Daniel might not be right there and she’ll lean on him and it’ll all look too comfortable and familiar and someone will start asking questions. But she’s been trying to wean herself off of them, learn to ground herself, and as long as that day when Daniel isn’t right there is very far in the future, they’ll be okay.

“I’m going to bed,” Sam says once Jack’s organized the watch rotation. She wishes the three men goodnight and heads off toward some bushes so she can go to the bathroom before brushing her teeth.

Daniel crawls into the tent after Sam. He’d noticed her today. Though she’d outwardly hid it well, he could feel how jumpy she was, how grateful she was to be paired up with Teal’c instead of alone (something he suspects Jack arranged on purpose, much like giving her last watch so she wouldn’t have to worry about falling back asleep).

“I’m fine, Daniel,” she whispers, back turned to him. She grasps the hem of her shirt and lifts it over her head, turning it rightside-out again and folding it neatly by the head of her sleeping bag. It gets a little chilly at night here, but they’ve zipped their sleeping bags together and she appreciates the skin contact while sleeping. She unties her boots and stuffs her socks in a side pocket of her pack, producing a clean pair for tomorrow from another pocket. She shivers as she shimmies out of her pants and underwear; pajamas are a rare luxury offworld, but they’ve scouted and re-scouted this planet and determined that the largest threat it holds is an offshoot of mosquito and disaster will not fall on their heads if she sleeps in a stolen pair of her boyfriend’s boxer shorts.

Daniel reaches out and touches her shoulder before she can pull on her camisole, the scar still shiny and pink and new. “Didn’t say you weren’t.” He starts on his own bedtime routine, setting his boots next to Sam’s and checking his pants pockets for spare rocks before folding up the pants and stuffing them in a pillowcase. The fire outside provides just enough light for him to make out Sam, already tucked inside their sleeping bags. He strips off his shirt and slides it in with his pants and offers her the makeshift pillow.

She smiles and tucks it under her head while Daniel slides in next to her. They’ve always kept it strictly professional offworld before, but this is a simple mission and the only reason they’re there at all is protocol. His chest presses against her back and she sighs, relaxing. She clasps her fingers with his and closes her eyes.

Daniel nuzzles her neck and gently kisses her cheek, whispering for her to sleep well.

* * *

  
Jack waits for the thoughts of both of them to settle into sleep. “Did you know about that?” He asks Teal’c across the fire.

Teal’c raises an eyebrow and looks at the tent housing two of his friends. “Indeed.” They hadn’t told him and he’d never witnessed anything, but he had noticed.

“How come I didn’t know about that?” Jack asks, mostly rhetorically.

“I believe Major Carter and Daniel Jackson went to great lengths to keep their relationship discrete.” He had noticed only by virtue of the two of them leaving the base together and arriving simultaneously the next morning several times, and how much less time Major Carter spent on the base once Daniel Jackson had returned.

Jack’s fairly certain that the list of people who knew about Daniel and Sam ends with him, Teal’c and Janet. Like Sam had said at the beginning of this telepathy mess, with the amount of fighting SG-1 gets into, it’s entirely likely General Hammond would’ve split them up the moment he knew about it. It isn’t against the rules, but just barely.

He wonders, if Teal’c could figure out Daniel and Sam, if Teal’c has figured out him and Daniel and Sam. Predictably, the other man isn’t giving him any indication and Jack really, really doesn’t want to ask. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Their relationship showed no signs of interfering with our missions.”

Jack nods and trusts that Teal’c would hold the same logic if he knew about the three of them.

* * *

  
Sam wakes with the gentle purr of the zipper and shuffle as Daniel slides out of the tent to switch with Jack. She sits up and peers outside: Teal’c has gone to the other tent and Jack and Daniel whisper quietly as Daniel goes about making coffee. Certain that Jack will join her in a moment, she lies down again. They’re taking a risk, him sleeping with her instead of with Teal’c, but none of the mine staff will see it (and she suspects that none of them are savvy enough to know that it’s frowned upon) and she’s fairly certain Teal’c won’t mention it in the morning. If he does, they’ll brush it off as Sam having trouble sleeping alone. That, at least, is the truth.

She hates it. When it was just her and Daniel, she enjoyed sharing her bed with him, curling up against his warm body and falling asleep to the sound of his quiet breathing. She found, on the nights that she had to, that she didn’t actually like sleeping alone but she could manage. And when Jack joined them, one or both was there when she fell asleep and she’d grown used to having them there. But she’d always believed that she’d at least be capable of sleeping without someone next to her.

She hasn’t slept alone, not through the whole night, since she was captured. And when she tried to lay down for a nap that first week home and found herself starting to panic, her mind taking her right back to the last time she slept alone (dirt floor, cold walls, men staring, women screaming, pain) no matter how tightly she’d pulled the blankets around her, she’d sat up and called for Daniel. Every time she tries to fall asleep – and Jack and Daniel have been incredibly supportive in her attempts – she ends up being unable to sleep until one of them joins her, or the blankets end up tangled around her as one or the other tries to wake her from her nightmare.

“Stop thinking,” Jack says, stepping into the tent.

Sam shivers at the gust of cold air he brings in with him. “Sorry.”

Jack silently strips down to his boxers and produces a compressed pillow from his pack. He shakes it until it fluffs out.

“Neat,” she says. “Can I have one?”

He smiles at her in the dark and offers it to her. “Requisition one when we get back.”

Sam waits for Jack to settle next to her before she lies down again, resting her head on the new pillow. His arms snake around her and she sighs.

“Sam,” he says quietly.

She opens her eyes again. “Yeah?”

“Nevermind.”

Sam braces herself against the ground and turns over, propping her elbow up and her head on her hand. “No, what?”

Jack looks away at the roof of the tent, a panel pulled back so they can see the stars through the netting. “Getting better is hard,” he says, finally. “But you will.”

Sam’s long suspected that more happened to him in Iraq than a parachuting accident and she thinks that they might not be talking about her anymore. She doesn’t push (isn’t sure she wants to know, actually), so she simply nods and tries not to listen to anything he’s thinking. “Yeah, I will.”

He tenderly kisses her forehead and she tucks her head under his chin, breathing him in as she slowly falls asleep.

* * *

  
They thought they did pretty well, considering that there wasn’t actually much to do on that particular mission.

The expression on General Hammond’s face tells them otherwise.

He scans the folder in front of him and looks upward to the four people standing in front of him. “Well?”

“I think it went fine, sir,” Jack says, speaking for all of them.

“I have a report here indicating that the three of you were absent-minded and often distracted.”

“General, please. It was a babysitting mission about a bunch of rocks.”

Hammond shakes his head. “Colonel, I’m used to hearing scientists complain that you aren’t paying attention. This,” he gestures to the report, “is not that.”

Sam’s shoulders drop, immediately seeing where this is going. “We’re getting better, sir,” she says quietly, trying not to sound too much like she’s begging. Daniel’s hand, shielded from General Hammond by a chair, brushes against hers and he squeezes her finger before letting go.

“I have no doubt about that, Major. However, I need you three back in the field now. And, unfortunately, I cannot send you out there together.”

Jack scrubs a hand over his face to give himself a second to mask the anger in his eyes. He clenches his jaw.

Hammond opens his mouth to finish what he started, but a heavy knock on the door interrupts him. He sighs. “Come.”

Sergeant Harriman pokes his head in through the door. “I’m sorry, sir. We have a radio transmission from a ship that’s just appeared in orbit. I think you’ll want to hear this.” He looks at the four other people in the office. “All of you.”

Looking upward, Hammond exhales and stands, gesturing for everyone else to file out.

Sam takes one look at the woman on the screen in the control room and tenses. She reaches behind her for Daniel, not caring if it looks untoward. He settles his hand on her lower back, giving her space to lean in if she needs to.

Breathe.

Sam nods and closes her eyes, inhaling deeply and exhaling a controlled breath.

 _“My name is K’Tara, captain of the Venkati salvage ship Bandhu. I hear you have a bit of a telepathy problem,”_ she smiles. _“We can help you with that.”_


	7. for blood and empire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part three - farther from familiar

Sam nervously adjusts her watch and stares at the increasing numbers on the elevator. Daniel’s hand on her shoulder startles her.

“You okay?”

She nods quickly, even though she really isn’t and he knows it. After they’d disconnected with the Venkati, she’d made a beeline for her lab, taking a detour to throw up in the nearest bathroom. She hadn’t been prepared for that. Daniel had followed and sat with her in her dark, quiet lab while she calmed down.

“Hammond said you don’t have to be there for this,” he reminds her.

Sam nods again and bites the inside of her lip. “I know. But it would be weird if a third of the group didn’t show.”

Daniel squeezes her shoulder and drops his hand as the elevator doors open. He follows her out into the hallway and up to the briefing room. Sam goes on guard, but plasters a smile on her face and continues walking, taking a seat across from Jack. Daniel sits next to her, noticing how controlled her breathing has suddenly become.

She okay?

I think so.

Sam looks up from studying the grain of the table, annoyed. I can hear both of you.

Jack clears his throat. “Shall we get started?”

K’Tara smiles and introduces the rest of her group. Jai, a petite – even for a Venkati – woman will be doing the actual procedure, and Doran, who isn’t given a job description but is big enough to make everyone in the room assume he’s there for security reasons. “I heard you ran into a bit of trouble with the Hokari.”

Not for the first time, Jack wonders how the galactic rumor mill works. Everyone seems to hear things about them without them ever talking to anybody else.

“Actually,” Sam says, “the Hokari were fine. The problem was with you.” Before she left, feeling the bottom drop out of her stomach, she’d made it clear to General Hammond that, short of locking her out of the room, there would be no guarantee that she would not yell at these people. He had smiled warmly, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and said that he understood but asked that she at least please try to keep it civil.

K’Tara squirms in her chair. “Yes, about that. You were, unfortunately, caught up in a raid on one of the Hokari government buildings.” She holds up her hand, silencing Daniel’s question. “Once our operatives realized you were not Hokari, they should have released you. Immediately. Driva and his cohorts were acting far beyond the purview of our agenda. Those whom your friends did not…eliminate in your rescue have been dealt with accordingly. We have no interest in angering you or your people and our argument is not with Earth. I apologize deeply for what you went through, Major Carter.”

Sam clenches her jaw and swallows. The entire room remains tensely silent while she considers the apology. She knows that everyone would back her up if she chooses to reject it; they’d kick out the Venkati and finish the conversation in Hammond’s office and be reassigned. “Thank you,” she says.

General Hammond smiles softly at her before turning his attention to the Venkati woman, who looks quite a bit more relieved than she should be. “Three of my people,” he gestures, “became telepathically linked while visiting Hokari Prime. Your…raid occurred while Hokari doctors were trying to determine cause and solution.”

K’Tara nods. “Yes. The Hokari have a reset protocol at all of their space ports and the Stargate. I’m sure they explained it to you as a way to ‘mentally cleanse’ themselves after visiting ‘mentally hostile’ worlds.” She rolls her eyes. “This is not true. The reset protocol is designed to re-activate the telepathic abilities of anyone who had them deactivated by us.”

Daniel blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Hokari telepathy is not like yours, Doctor Jackson,” Jai speaks up. “They can hear thoughts of everyone, regardless of species. We deactivate the telepathy of our prisoners as a matter of security so they cannot hear anything other than what we allow them. On the chance that they should escape, they leave with only what spoken words they have overheard. Not classified plans.”

Jack shakes his head and holds up his hand. “Hold on a minute. What the hell is going on here?”

“Jack, Ito mentioned this and we heard about it when Sam was first taken. Something about the Venkati thinking the prices are too high for being part of the Collective.” Daniel turns to the K’Tara, encouraging her to elaborate.

“The protection they provide is genuine, true. But there has been no need for their protection for several hundred years. The Goa’uld leave protected planets alone as a matter of course now and there has been no other threat. We are giving the Hokari between half and three-fourths of our planet’s natural resources annually in exchange for essentially nothing. Because they’ve taken almost everything, we have had no way of advancing on our own. We have nothing to trade, no way to become sovereign and independent in the galaxy.”

Sam’s eyebrows furrow. “You flew a ship here.”

“Stolen.”

General Hammond clears his throat. “This is fascinating. But can you fix this?”

Jai nods. “Absolutely.”

K’Tara holds up her hand. “However.”

“Here it comes,” Jack mutters.

“One of our operatives was captured by the Hokari. She is being held in a prison complex on one of the outer planets of their solar system. She has vital information which she was unable to relay before she was captured. We need to get her out. In exchange for your assistance in that matter, we will gladly solve your telepathy problem.”

* * *

  
With the Venkati safely back up in their ship, promising to call in a few hours with a decision, General Hammond turns to the members of SG-1. “Well?”

“This is insane, General,” Jack says. “Not to mention, these are the people that kidnapped Carter.”

I don’t think anyone forgot about that, Jack.

Well after you accepted their little apology…

What the hell was I supposed to do? Say ‘no,’ and we get split up?

You could’ve made her squirm a bit more.

Sam huffs and crosses her arms, giving him a stern look as soon as his attention is back on General Hammond.

Teal’c tilts his head. He would be excluded from any potential mission – the other three have the benefit of being able to communicate silently and the Venkati have a device that can block the signal from the Hokari – but still feels that his opinion is worth voicing. “Is it prudent to potentially become involved in whatever disagreement is occurring with a society that is clearly more advanced than yours?”

“See, Teal’c agrees with me.”

I didn’t not agree with you.

You didn’t agree with me, either.

What…you can’t seriously be against this just because some people who are now very dead roughed me up a little bit.

They didn’t just rough you up, Carter, they…

I know. I was there. And if I’m considering that this might – MIGHT – be a viable option, you need to stop trying to defend my honor or whatever the hell it is you’re doing right now.

I’m not defending your…whatever. I’m just saying we might want to think about who we’re dealing with, here.

“Speak out loud, please,” General Hammond interrupts, exasperated watching the two of them argue silently.

“Sorry, sir.”

“Doctor Jackson?”

Daniel winces, hoping that he’d somehow melted into the background and no one would notice him. He wants the telepathy gone, but he agrees with both Jack and Teal’c. “We could always go back to the Hokari for help,” he suggests, lamely.

Sam shakes her head. “I think that they were genuinely confused by us. If the reset protocol was designed specifically to reactivate previously active but now deactivated –”

How many times can she say ‘active’ in one sentence?

“Shut _up_!” Sam yells. It takes her a second to realize she said it out loud. It takes another second to realize that it wasn’t Jack being ornery, but Jack being himself and thinking what he normally thinks when she talks about science. She swallows. “Sorry, sir.”  Jack, I…

Take a deep breath there, Carter.

“I believe that agreeing with the Venkati plan is the only wise course of action,” Teal’c says, breaking the stunned silence.

“Very well,” Hammond says, secretly relieved. “We’ll bring the Venkati back down here to figure out the plan. Provided it doesn’t involve anything too objectionable, you have a go.”

* * *

  
Jack sets his boots next to Daniel’s and hangs up his coat. “I still think this is a bad idea.”

Daniel mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “nobody asked you,” and heads for the kitchen to start dinner. They leave in the morning.

Sam, however, whirls around. “Do you _want_ me to punch you?”

Stunned, Jack blinks. “No.”

“Then shut the hell up about it,” she says, fuming.

Jack watches her chest heave with labored breathing, angrier than he’s seen her in a while, if ever. “Sam, honestly, I…” he trails off.

She closes her eyes and debates, just for a moment, about kicking them both out and having a quiet night to herself. She wouldn’t sleep at all, but she thinks that might be a decent price to pay for having some silence and not having to control her mind. “In the briefing room,” she says, opening her eyes again, “that’s not going to stop if we don’t fix this. Even if Hammond splits us up, I think we’re going to drive each other insane.”

“Sam.” Her palm on his chest silences anything more he might say.

“I know you don’t like it,” she says quietly. “And if there were another option, I’d tell them to take their apology and their plan and shove it up their asses. But there isn’t. You asked me to tell you if anything was going to make me go off the deep end. Staying like this definitely will.” She lightly grasps the fabric of his shirt in her fingertips before dropping her hand away.

Jack watches her disappear into the kitchen to help Daniel and he takes a deep breath. He hates this plan. Even if it were with some other species, one that hadn’t nearly raped and killed one of the most important people in his life, he’d hate it. He sighs and follows the other two and wonders when the hell the universe will realize that it needs to do its own damn dirty work.

* * *

  
The ship is thankfully an al’kesh, affording them enough space to fit six people for a four-day flight without anyone getting a black eye. After ten hours, they relax somewhat, not quite trusting their new friends but not quite distrusting them either.

“Why don’t you just leave the Collective?” Daniel asks. It seems like the easier, and less violent, solution. “I mean, you’re still a sovereign, independent world.”

Jai smiles tightly. “Unfortunately, the Venkati government doesn’t see things the way we do. They still cling to the old theory that the Goa’uld are lingering at the edges of our solar system ready to attack.”

“Then overthrow your own government,” Jack suggests from across the room. He’d been listening to Carter read silently, but feels obligated to point out the obvious. She looks up from the book and nods in agreement before returning to the paragraph.

“We have reason to believe that most of the government is being paid off by the Hokari. Our system is rich in minerals the Hokari need for their transport network; they can’t get the quantities they need from other species. Without us, their supply chain would break down completely within a matter of months.”

Jack pays enough attention to the next few minutes of Daniel’s conversation to know that this is not something they should really be sticking their noses into and pulls a deck of cards out of the side pocket of his pack. He waves the deck in front of Carter’s face.

How is this going to be at all successful? Despite her tone, she folds down the corner of the page and sets her book aside.

Well, we’re not playing Go Fish.

Sam laughs at that, remembering an early offworld trip when they tried to explain the children’s game to Teal’c and thought that they might have accidentally convinced him that his faith in humanity was greatly misplaced. She glances over at Daniel; normally she’d suggest some variant of poker and invite him in, but he’s engrossed in a conversation whose details she’d really rather not know about. Gin? 

You’re on _._ Jack dumps out the cards and shuffles.

It takes Daniel several rounds of hearing lay down the ace of diamonds already countered with I don’t have it (followed by liar) before he realizes what the other two are doing. “Uh, you guys? How is cards possible with this?” He gestures from his head to theirs.

Jack simply shrugs and lays down his cards – complete with the ace of diamonds, much to Sam’s chagrin – and proclaims _gin_.

* * *

  
“This is an extremely bad idea,” Daniel says after dinner when they’ve excused themselves for bed and found a set of sleeping quarters.

Sam looks over her shoulder, momentarily distracted from digging through her pack for a pillow.

“Do tell,” Jack says, leaning back against the bulkhead, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He’s silently pleased that Daniel’s finally coming around to the same conclusion he had two days ago.

Daniel ignores Jack’s smugness. “Their operative is being held in a maximum security prison on a planet in the outskirts of the Hokari system. If we manage to make it out of there undetected, there won’t be a problem. But that’s unlikely.”

“We knew this,” Sam says, rolling out her sleeping bag next to Daniel’s. They have the blueprints of the prison and know where the Venkati is being held, but based on K’Tara’s overview of the security systems, getting out without tripping any alarms will be a long shot.

“According to Jai, the Hokari government has about had it with the stunts the Venkati are pulling. The raid that took Sam also picked up several mid-level government officials who turned up very publicly dead a few days later. There’s also been a recent attack on a manufacturing plant which killed a hundred Hokari workers, and I guess they’ve just found a couple dozen of their people in offworld Venkati-run brothels. The most recent Venkati intelligence has the Hokari gearing up for war.”

“The Venkati don’t stand a chance. Even if they have managed to scavenge a few ships and some weapons, the Hokari can wipe them out pretty quickly.” Sam sits down and starts unlacing her boots.

Daniel frowns. “They have to have friends. People who they sell to, who will give them weapons. If they can’t master space travel, they definitely didn’t invent that laser ray that knocked you out or this anti-telepathy…thing.”

“But still…” Sam trails off, recalling the weapons system that nearly blew up their UAV.

“I think the point,” Jack says, “is let’s not get caught.”

* * *

  
Three and a half days later, Daniel owes Jack about a year’s worth of wages in lost gin games, Sam has finished her book twice, and they have a plan they think should work.

K’Tara expertly lands the al’kesh a few miles from the prison, hiding them in a small mountain range. There’s a pass within half a mile, ensuring they won’t have to rappel or climb.

Sam’s amazed that the planet has any breathable atmosphere whatsoever. The solar system’s sun is merely an overly-bright pinprick in the sky and she knows that they’re far enough away to make the moon even colder than Pluto. She spies some abnormal energy readings on the navigation display and realizes that the atmosphere must be artificial. “Did they notice us?”

K’Tara shakes her head. “I matched our trajectory to that of a meteorite.” She gestures out the window, where two streaks of light cross their view and then disappear. “They’re not going to check it out.”

The planet itself is gorgeous, bathed in cool blue-silver light reflected from the moons orbiting above, and full of craggy mountains and deep ravines. The mountain shadows contrast sharply with shimmers of what Sam suspects is ice. Even this far off, she can spy the prison; hulking and boxy, it almost looks like a castle in the distance. She knows it’s just as protected, though they probably left off the moat full of crocodiles. She hopes.

“Alright, kids,” Jack says from the back of the room where they’ve stashed the gear they’ll need. He shrugs on his parka and gestures for the other two to do the same. They’ll ditch the cold weather gear when they get to the prison, favoring the black clothing they’re wearing underneath; the plan is to be able to pick it up on the way back, but given everything they’ve learned about the prison, his assumption is that they’ll be too busy running.

“I’ve modified these to your exact telepathic frequency,” Jai says, holding out her palm with three small, round, black devices. The entire plan hinges on these: they can block telepathy from the Hokari, but not from anyone else plugged into the frequency.

Jack really hopes they work. He takes one and sticks it behind his ear like Jai mimes. He winces; it stings a bit as it attaches.

Once they’re all into their cold weather gear with their weapons loaded and strapped on, Jack gives the final nod to K’Tara. “Radio silence. If something goes wrong, we’ll call you.” The Venkati had promised that they could transmit on a secure frequency, but Jack thinks that they’re taking enough risks as it is.

K’Tara nods. “Good luck.”

* * *

  
Jack coughs, his lungs and throat shocked at the unexpectedly frigid and dry air outside of the ship. He’d thought Sam was being over-reactive when she’d recommended deep winter gear, but he’s thankful for the face mask he pulls up over his nose and mouth. Even with the artificial atmosphere raising the core temperature of the planet, it’s cold enough to make his eyelashes freeze. There’s enough ambient light – which Sam muses must be a result of the atmosphere – that they haven’t bothered with headlights. He gestures for the other two to follow him out, Sam bringing up the rear, and he looks back as the al’kesh shimmers out of sight, cloaked just in case. He takes a moment to build a pile of rocks that would look inconspicuous to anyone else, but will mark it as the location of the ship.

Despite the cold, it’s an easy, albeit eerie, walk. The planet is silent, without even a gust of wind to distract them from their thoughts. When Daniel accidentally kicks a small rock, the skittering noise it makes across the ice and dust is almost deafening. Sam explains the lack of movement as the planet being completely barren until the Hokari got here and put up their artificial atmosphere; since it’s used only as a prison, there wasn’t any point in bringing animals or plants. Jack wonders where food comes from.

A mile away from the prison, they duck behind a large boulder to avoid being noticed by two guards.

Hey, we’re back here!

Jack!

What? Might as well test it when there’s just the two of them.

The guards walk past, silent and clearly bored with their jobs, and do not notice the trio.

Good to know that works.

They wait until the guards are out of sight before continuing.

There isn’t much in the way of external defenses. It’s a prison on a remote, frozen moon. Getting inside is easy. Getting out is the problem.

“Right,” Jack says, staring up at the smooth rock walls. There are four guards stationed out front and a watchtower they managed to avoid that looks mostly for show. But inside is a maze of life signs detectors and rigid guard formations and locked doors whose combinations they only partly know. He thinks he may have heard someone mention lasers. “This will end well.”


	8. the midnight organ fight

Jack silently knocks out the lone sentry standing guard at a small side entrance. He drags the unconscious man behind a collection of rocks and pulls the access card out of the man’s pocket. Nodding to Daniel and Sam, they run quietly to the door. They’re about to hit a rotation change and it should take the Hokari at least twenty minutes to realize that the man they just knocked out is missing. He checks around him in the open, frozen wasteland, seeing nothing but rocks and stars and the now-unoccupied watchtower. Stepping up to the door, he presses his ear against it, listening for any sign of life on the other side. He holds up his fist, hearing a voice. He waits until it recedes completely before stepping back again. Taking one last look at Sam and Daniel, he waits for their confirming nods.

He slides the access card through the electronic reader and the door opens inward with a simple click. Sam hurries through first and flattens against the wall, ensuring the hallway is clear. She blinks a few times, adjusting to the dim light; for a well-secured prison, the place is very poorly lit. The hallway’s clear and she motions to the others to follow her through as she makes her way to the junction ahead. Looking left, she immediately hides behind the corner, shaking her head. Three of them. She frowns; the easiest way to the cellblock they need is a staircase down that hallway.

There’s another staircase, Daniel thinks, down that way _._ He points to the hallway to the right.  A left, a right and then a left, I think _._

Jack nods. They’ll have to move quickly, in case the three in the other direction choose to turn around at an inopportune moment, but they can make it. But first thing’s first. Carter…

On it, sir. Sam frowns at a panel embedded in the wall and finally pries off the cover so she can access the controls underneath. She knows why the Hokari have separate detectors for each section – on the off-chance someone tries to pull exactly what they’re doing right now, any security guards won’t be completely in the dark just because the intruders pulled a single switch – but she can’t help but wonder if someone will notice the systematic blackouts of the detectors. She hopes that the guards responsible for monitoring the life signs detectors will be as bored and distracted as the ones they encountered outside. She pulls a green wire loose, then a yellow one and attaches the green wire to where the yellow used to be and the lights on the sensor blink off. We should be good for this section.

Jack walks quickly, leading Daniel and Sam down the hallway. He squints in the half-light of the hallway, suddenly reminded of the dirty, dark hallway that led them to Sam.

Can you think about something else please, sir?

Sorry, Carter. He tries to smile at her inside his head. He isn’t sure if it comes off comforting or creepy.

Left, Jack.

Jack stops at the corner and peers around it. He waits for a few moments to ensure that the odd shapes he sees aren’t going to spontaneously turn into people; the light in the next hallway is even worse. They’re in some sort of storage section, with chairs and boxes and assorted junk lining the hallways as if the Hokari don’t believe in closets. According to Venkati intelligence, most of this prison is actually empty, reserved only for traitors, terrorists and the worst offenders. They were warned not to assume that the low population would equate to lax guards or security measures; despite the easily-dispatched guards outside, he’s not willing to reconsider that particular warning just yet. Jack wonders why the Hokari went to all the trouble of building a huge prison on a planet at the edge of their solar system, one that didn’t even have any atmosphere until they put it there, if only to house a handful of people. Daniel starts to theorize an answer and Jack shakes his head.

Not really the time, Daniel.

Certain that the hallway’s clear both ways, he turns the corner and relaxes a little when Carter and Daniel follow him; they’re no longer in danger of being seen from behind.

It’s an easy trip to the stairs from there. Jack only has to knock out one Hokari while they’re waiting for Carter to disable the sensor in that hallway.

Unfortunately, the cellblock is entirely empty save for a man lying on his back in a corner cell, staring up at the ceiling. They’re supposed to be picking up a woman named Niké.

That was predictable.

Shut up, Daniel. He backs them up into the hallway after scanning the walls and finding several security cameras, their power lights blinking strong and red. If they haven’t been noticed on camera now, they will be the moment they walk into the block. Alright, new ideas.

We could ask him, Sam gestures to the man who’s pretending he hasn’t noticed his visitors.

Cameras, Carter.

They probably don’t have audio. We could talk from here. The block’s not large, three moderately-sized cells on each long side with a door in the middle of the two shorter sides. Sir, we need to find out where she is. If she’s not even supposed to be in this block, we can leave and tell them we tried and their intelligence was wrong. But if they’ve taken her somewhere else, we can try to get her out.

I knew this was a bad idea, Jack grumbles. But he nods. “Hey!” He whispers loudly. “You, in the corner.”

“Yes?” The man doesn’t move, but his and Jack’s words seem to echo louder than they should.

Daniel and Sam turn and check the hallway for footsteps they’re sure are coming, but find nothing.

“Was there someone else in here with you? A Venkati woman?”

“Why should I help you?” He stretches languidly, the sheets beneath him rustling roughly.

Oh, crap _._ They don’t need lights on the man’s skin to know that he’s Hokari. “I’ll let you out.” Jack waves his hand to silence Daniel and Sam, who are thinking very hard about how bad an idea that is.

The man sighs and crosses one ankle over the other. “No need,” he says, clearly at peace with his fate to live out a few years in this cell. “I would have nowhere to go and your Venkati friend would not take kindly to my presence. The offer is enough incentive to help. The guards took her; I believe to be interrogated about her plots. It is a room on the third floor. I suggest you follow the screaming.”

“Thank you,” Jack says and backs out of the doorway. Good to know they’re not all jerks. How do we get to the third floor?  They’re on the first sublevel now.

Uh _._ Daniel jerks a thumb behind him in the general direction of the stairs.

Right. Let’s go.

* * *

  
Sam didn’t expect “follow the screaming” to be anything other than typical Hokari attitude, least of all good advice. It bothers her immensely to be proven wrong.

Through a small glass window in the door, she can see a green-skinned woman tied to a chair surrounded by four Hokari men. They don’t appear to be physically harming the woman, but the intensity on their faces and the screams coming out of her mouth certainly indicate that something unpleasant is going on. Sam shudders; a telepathic species as advanced as the Hokari must have become very efficient at extracting information they want.

Now what? We can’t just walk in there. Daniel’s surprised alarms haven’t gone off at their presence yet; he knows that they passed several security cameras in the stairwell and the guards they’ve knocked out have to have been discovered missing by now.

No. Sam frowns at the keypad on the door. Literally, they can’t. There’s no slot to slide the access card through and she suspects that a guard posted outside the building wouldn’t be granted access to this particular room anyway. From what she can tell, the room is unnecessarily large and a quick look upward through the window confirms her suspicions that it spans multiple stories, with guards positioned above as well.

We have enough C4, Jack muses, uncomfortable standing still where they are. It’s not exactly exposed and there are a myriad of hallways they could duck down if necessary, but the exit is a long way from here.

Sam blinks and turns away from the keypad. You want to blow up the building? She’s not opposed to the idea, just surprised he’s the one who suggested it.

A distraction, Carter. Enough to get us in there, grab her and get out.

* * *

  
With the last of the C4 charges set, Sam activates the timer and runs back through the network of hallways to the interrogation rooms. She ducks into an alcove, dodging two guards walking past. Five minutes, she warns Jack and Daniel and continues on her way. Finding a bare metal ladder exactly where she’s supposed to, she checks to make sure no one’s on top of it and begins to climb. She takes a deep breath when she no longer faces the brick wall the ladder was built into but instead the open air of the interrogation room, with Niké in the middle. The lights are bright in the room, but angled downward, intended to focus on prisoners and it’s dim at this height. Looking around, Sam sighs in relief that nobody’s spotted her yet and she’s far enough up in the shadows that if a guard looks in her direction, she’ll be mistaken for a fellow guard if she’s seen at all.

Daniel nods at Jack and leaves to take up his position by the opposite door. The hallway behind Jack had been surprisingly full of Hokari, all now dead or in the process of dying. Daniel’s still confused about how nobody would’ve noticed the eleven voices suddenly going silent – some only after thinking, probably very loudly, about how much that knife hurts – but he files it away along with the other things he doesn’t understand about telepathy and peers through the small window to take stock of the situation. After ensuring that nothing’s changed, he ducks back into the shadows, remaining hidden until he can get inside.

Jack looks upward and sees a shadow climbing up the exposed ladder. He holds his breath for a brief second before realizing that all interested eyes are focused away from her and on the chair in the middle of the room. Getting Daniel and Niké out won’t be a problem, but Carter’s a bit farther away. He tracks the metal labyrinth above, tracing her path of escape. Satisfied that she can easily walk across the bridge she’s climbing toward and meet up with another along the side, which leads to a ladder a few feet away from him, he settles his back against the wall and waits for the C4 to blow.

She climbs higher and the ladder ends at a catwalk. She spots guards on various parts of the catwalk around the room, but they’re far enough away that they won’t be able to identify her as an intruder unless they look too hard. Walking quickly – and not looking down – she makes her way across the catwalk so she has a clear view of the entire room and all of its exits. At this height, the walls disappear and she can see outside the room. She squints and makes out the shadow of Jack knocking out a guard by the door to the left. Confident she only witnessed that because she’s up so high, and that no one else at her level is paying attention, she casts a glance around her to make sure her immediate area is unoccupied, and then leans against a column, settling her P-90 comfortably in her arms. Ready.

Ready, Daniel thinks from his position on the opposite side of the room from Jack.

Ready, Jack thinks, stowing the unconscious guard out of sight.

Sam nods, even though the others can’t see her, and steadies herself. There are far more guards inside the room than they’d anticipated and she wonders just how much Niké knows if they’re going to this much effort to ensure she doesn’t escape on her own. Either that, Sam thinks to herself, or there really are only a handful of prisoners and the rest of the guards didn’t have anything to do. She checks her watch – one minute left.

“How did you get in here?” A gruff voice grumbles from out of Jack’s eyesight.

Jack turns abruptly to come face to face with quite possibly the largest being he’s ever seen. “I walked,” he says and ducks a blow to the head, bringing his gun up to hit the man in the back, simultaneously shoving his foot into one of the man’s knees, forcing him down. He cups the man’s chin with one hand and braces the other on his forehead and twists. The body immediately relaxes, slumping to the ground. Jack looks back through the window, checking on the location of Carter and Daniel, before dragging the man out of sight. He hopes that’s the end of the trail of guards coming his way.

The building begins to shake, at first a low rumble from below and gradually increasing to massive tremors as all of Sam’s C4 explodes. Daniel makes a mental note to talk to her about maybe cutting back next time as he jumps out of the way of several bricks falling down.

The last of the C4 blows and the whole building shakes and for one frightening second, Sam thinks she’s used too much and the building will collapse down on top of their heads before they have a chance to get out. She shrugs it off – she always thinks she used too much – and picks up her gun, ready to shoot at anyone left after the initial exodus, or anyone trying to grab Niké from her chair. The guards around her begin to shout to one another about what the hell just happened while others try any way they can to get down.

An alarm begins to wail, piercing through the cacophony of confusion and explosions. They all wince at the ear-splitting noise, extremely glad the alarm didn’t go off earlier.

Jack covers his head as several tiles come crashing down from the ceiling. He’s always thought Carter uses more C4 than necessary, but nothing’s ever fallen on top of them. Yet.

“You!” A guard shouts, coming toward Sam, finally noticing her intrusion. His footsteps are so heavy on the catwalk that the structure shakes and sways concerningly.

Sam turns at the voice and adrenaline surges through her body. She swings her gun around to aim at him, her cover completely blown. “Hi,” she says with a smirk, intending to shoot him before he gets too close, but someone grabs her from behind.

“You are not supposed to be here,” another voice rasps in her ear, eerily calm for being in a building that might collapse at any moment.

Sam struggles against the guard’s arms around her waist. He lifts her up and she takes the opportunity to lash out with her feet, kicking the other man solidly in the head. The blow causes him to stagger backward and she slams her elbow into the stomach of the man holding her. He abruptly lets go and she drops to the swaying floor of the catwalk. Grabbing hold of the railing with one hand for balance, Sam aims her zat with the other, shooting him in the head as he comes toward her. He stumbles with the shock of electrocution and falls over the rail into the chaos below.

“I will kill you,” the other man promises, blood trickling down his cheek from her kick.

Sam stands up and spares a glance downward to see that the room is emptying of guards like they thought it would, opening the doors from the inside and allowing Jack and Daniel entrance once the doors are clear. She thinks she catches a glance of Daniel untying Niké from her chair. She shoots the remaining guard with her zat; he doesn’t fall over the edge like the other, only slumping against the metal railing. She shoots him a second time.

Sam steps over the body to get a clearer shot at a man trying to attack Daniel. Even though most guards have left, running toward the explosions or to an exit, those that remain are calling for assistance, finally realizing their security has been breached. She holsters her zat and aims her P-90 at the back of the guard fighting Daniel, shooting as soon as she has a shot.

Thanks!

No problem.

You okay up there?

I am now. Focus on her. Colonel?

Shooting bad guys, Carter. Anytime you want to help with that…

Was a little busy, sir. She aims and takes out two men trying to make their way back into the room while Jack takes out another attempting to get past him. They need that exit open so they can get out.

Most of the guards turn and run out of the room, not noticing his presence as they respond to the alarm now echoing through the halls. Jack sends up a thank you for small favors. He positions himself inside the door, his back to the frame, and shoots anyone coming at him from either direction; there’s enough chaos and noise now that gunshots won’t be noticed.

Turning around, he finds himself surrounded by Hokari guards who look very convinced that he has something to do with the instability of their building. And while he didn’t technically set the C4 or the timer, he doesn’t think they’ll see it that way. He shoots one before they get too close.

Jack feels a gust of air at his back when the two behind him drop to the ground. Thanks, Carter _._ He shoots the other three in front of him.

“Finally,” Daniel mutters under his breath when it seems that the last of the guards are going to use the door closest to him as an exit. He dashes inside and immediately heads for Niké, aware that she’s looking more panicked by the moment and that there’s a very good chance that they’ll have to shoot their way out. “My name is Daniel,” he says when he reaches her, “I’m going to get you out of here.”

Niké nods and tries to lift her hands from their position behind her back to give him a better angle at slicing away the rope holding her to the chair.

Daniel makes quick work of the knots around Niké’s ankles. “Can you walk?” He helps her up.

“I think so. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he says, noticing that the building’s shaking even more now. Sam did say that there was a small chance the prison was wasn’t as structurally sound as she thought and it might come crashing down on top of them, but this doesn’t feel like an unsteady building: the rumbling seems to come at even intervals. “Let’s go.” He guides her across the room to Jack. “Sam?”

Jack nods upward at a familiar form rapidly climbing down a ladder. “Time to go,” he says with a sense of urgency.

Sam skips the last few steps of the ladder and jumps to the ground. The floor shakes with a telltale rumble indicating that a good chunk of the building has just collapsed. “That way,” she says confidently, pointing to a hallway that should lead them to a staircase and a quick exit.

When we get back, we’re going to have a chat about your explosives.

This was your idea _,_ she scolds, waiting long enough at the door to the stairs to ensure that they aren’t being followed by anyone intent on shooting them.

The cold, dry air of the planet hits them like a wave.

There isn’t time to allow their lungs to adjust to the air so they sprint, stumbling over rocks, coughing as they struggle to get as far away from the now-doomed prison as possible.

At the sound of gunfire, Jack looks up from their path. “What the hell?” He stops suddenly, turning to look at the scene behind them.

The others stop a few steps later, following Jack’s gaze.

The prison is surrounded by three ships hovering in midair; one fires a final shot into the building, sending it into a crumbling pile of rubble, dust and flame. Green-skinned soldiers on the ground gun down stunned Hokari guards that never stood a chance of survival.

Sam turns to Niké, who’s rubbing her wrists and trying not to shiver. “What the hell is going on?” she demands of the girl, who doesn’t look a day over eighteen.

“Uh, guys?” Daniel says. “Maybe we can argue about this later.” He spies a cadre of Hokari guards coming around the other side of the ruins who probably won’t stop to consider who’s shooting their comrades before pulling the trigger at someone unfamiliar.

The anger welling up inside of Jack isn’t just his, he knows; he’s furious, but the three of them combined make him feel like he’s going to explode. They’re going to have to physically hold him back if they don’t want him to punch K’Tara when they return to the ship.

* * *

  
It’s a tense ride back to Earth. Sam and Daniel manage to convince Jack that physically assaulting the ship’s captain is not the best idea even though it’s one they’d both like to partake in. K’Tara silences any discussion on the topic of the slaughter at the prison and merely ensures that Niké is alright and that no sensitive information was lost.

Jai offers to remove the telepathy on the trip home, but the three of them instantly turn her down. The ship may be large enough to allow for seven people to each have their own space, but they don’t trust that anything they say won’t be overheard. And they don’t trust that anything that’s overheard won’t be used against them somehow.

* * *

  
Daniel sits quietly next to Sam in the briefing room while Jack yells at K’Tara. There were no survivors, either dying in the building collapse or at the point of a Venkati gun upon escaping. Ito had dialed in only moments ago to inform General Hammond that any negotiations regarding trade or alliances would be put on hold indefinitely, as they were officially at open war with the Venkati.

“You knew,” Daniel says softly when he senses a break in Jack’s tirade. He turns slightly in his chair to look at K’Tara. “You knew she wouldn’t be in her cell and we’d have to do something to clear the room to get to her.” He receives a blank look and a blink in response, which is all he needs to know the truth. “You knew they’d all be leaving and be easy to pick off.” Another blink, this time with a slight, almost imperceptible nod. He opens his mouth, but doesn’t have a clue what to say, so leans back in his chair in disbelief. If he weren’t so busy being angry that they were used to start a war, he’d be impressed with the amount of planning.

“Why?” Sam asks. “You have no resources, you have no way to win this. They’ll wipe you out.” She hopes that this was just a misguided attempt to get the Hokari to finally release their hold, but she knows it’s a false hope.

K’Tara merely shrugs and settles more comfortably into her chair. “We have allies. And perhaps it will do the Hokari well to recognize that they cannot treat others in this manner. Their children will know better.”

Daniel shakes his head. “History is written by the victors.”

“Maybe.”

General Hammond clears his throat from the head of the table. “We did what you asked. Now, kindly fix my people and get the hell off my planet.”


	9. powerlines

“It’s not our fault,” Daniel says, tracing Sam’s knee with his finger. “The war,” he clarifies, when the others look at him confused. General Hammond sent them home for the night; after their last encounter with alien technology, he wants Janet to look over the Venkati equipment and make sure it wouldn’t harm them even more.

Sam shifts on the couch, stretching her legs further across Daniel’s lap as she settles into Jack’s chest. He slides his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her head. There’s a discussion to be had about what the three of them will do once their link is gone and SG-1 returns to full duty, but an unspoken – and unthought – agreement has pushed that off until later. The remnants of dinner cleaned up and leftovers boxed away, and most of the lights in Sam’s house have been turned off, a few candles lighting the living room.

“How do you figure?” Jack asks, eyebrow raised. Sam giggles at the feeling of his chin moving on her head and he squeezes her just a little tighter to shush her.

Daniel shrugs and trails his hands down to Sam’s socked feet, gently pushing his thumbs into her arches. “The Venkati planned it. Even if we hadn’t had to blow up the building –”

“Which was not my fault,” Sam clarifies; they’d learned later that the Venkati ships firing on it were the reason the prison collapsed completely. They hadn’t liked that news much, since they could easily have been buried alive by the rubble, but Sam was pleased she’d planted the explosives properly.

Daniel smiles at her and finishes his thought. “They would have used our rescue to start something. Or they would’ve found some other situation to do the exact same thing. Their own government wasn’t letting them leave the Collective and the Hokari weren’t exactly being fair about their price.”

Jack sighs. He doesn’t like the Hokari, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy that all of the guards were gunned down. At least the Hokari are unaware of their involvement in the incident – or don’t care – and Earth will be left out of it.

Sam covers Jack’s hands with hers and closes her eyes. “That doesn’t make it okay,” she says, voicing all of their thoughts on the subject. Daniel and Jack had each given the Venkati a piece of their mind on the flight home, and then Jack had been unable to stop himself once they arrived in the briefing room. She had stayed silent, playing solitaire or reading one of the history books Daniel brought along, only because she wasn’t certain she could keep her rant on topic.

They sit in silence as the small tealights burn down, gradually leaving them in darkness. Sam untangles herself from the two men and stands, offering them her hands.

It’s quiet as they make their way to her bedroom, extinguishing candles and remaining lights on their way, none of them willing to let go of each other until they have to.

* * *

  
“I’ll leave,” Jack says after, Sam curled against his chest. He runs his fingers across Daniel’s shoulders and through his hair, the other man’s head resting on Sam’s stomach. The decision has been in the back of his mind for weeks, carefully kept from the other two. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He doesn’t like it, but knows that if he doesn’t distance himself from them, he’s bound to fall deeper and someone will get hurt offworld.

Sam lifts her head, brows furrowed. “Jack…” she starts before realizing she doesn’t have a legitimate argument against it. She wants to argue, tell him that it’s not fair that he should have to leave – that any of them should have to leave – but knows that it’s no use. It isn’t fair, but he is right. If they want to stay a team offworld, things have to go back to how they were before.

Daniel languidly slides up to look Jack in the eye. He nods, resigned to same logic as Sam; they’re SG-1 first, the three of them second. “Tomorrow,” he whispers, lowering his lips to Jack’s as Sam’s hands roam across their bodies.

The sun is just beginning to press against the horizon when they finally drift off, three sets of limbs tangled around each other.

* * *

  
By virtue of being the only one who has half a chance of understanding what’s about to happen to them, Sam goes first.

She takes a deep breath and follows Jai to the bed at the edge of the infirmary where all of her equipment is set up. She reminds herself that they’re on base and that Janet is right next to her and that there is no chance of this backfiring the way it did the last time a young alien woman attached electrodes to her head.

For a brief moment, she wants to tell Jai to stop, to sit up and rip all of the cords away and storm up to General Hammond’s office and tell him that she is in no way going through with this. She knows that he’d order her back down to the infirmary and there’d be nothing she could do, but at least her protest would be on record.

Bye, Sam thinks after everything’s situated.

Bye, Sam.

Bye, Carter.

“Are you ready?”

Sam nods, though she wants desperately to shake her head. As much as she wants to be left alone inside her head and even though they physically aren’t going anywhere, she knows she’s going to miss the sound of Jack and Daniel in her mind.

Jai presses a button. The machine beeps and the device on Sam’s head lights up, blinking blue before it turns off again.

“That’s it?”

Jai nods.

Sam grips the edge of the bed, suddenly realizing how echoingly quiet it is. She wonders if they can still hear her or if she’s been taken out of the equation entirely. Janet rushes her off for a scan and to take readings to make sure she really is back to normal.

Determining that it did work, Janet gives Sam a clean bill of health and tells her to send in someone else.

“What’s it feel like?” Jack asks since he’s up next, having lost the Rock, Paper, Scissors match. It’s unsettling to no longer feel Sam inside of his head; one moment he knew she was close to telling Jai to stop, and the next she was just gone.

Sam looks first at him, and then Daniel. She can’t hear what either of them is thinking anymore, but she knows. “Silent.”

* * *

  
Silent doesn’t begin to cover it.

Sam thinks she now understands Mika’s terror when she suggested the concept of telepathic separation. She thought she would remember what it was like to be alone, to not feel Daniel or Jack even when they were too far away to hear. The silence is unnerving.

It helps to be with Daniel. Though they’re no longer connected, his presence settles her, makes her feel less alone. He sits closer to her in the briefing room than he used to; she knows he feels the same.

More than once she’s caught Jack looking at one or both of them, so close to asking a question he can’t ask. It takes two weeks to stop trying to reach out and touch him with her mind.

They’re good off world, appearing back to normal to anyone but the four of them. Their first mission back was another babysitting one, but a glowing review from the archaeological team quickly put them back on the front lines.

She knows Teal’c notices. They’re all in sync with him, but half a frame away from each other.

“You know, don’t you?” She asks one night offworld. Daniel’s out for the count with painkillers from a twisted ankle and Jack’s soundly asleep a tent over, exhausted from carrying half of Daniel’s weight all afternoon.

He lifts an eyebrow.

“About us.” Sam gestures to herself and the two tents. They never agreed not to tell anyone, but the implication was there. She wouldn’t even bring this up to Teal’c, but she needs the opinion of someone she hasn’t slept with recently.

He nods once. “Indeed.”

Sam doesn’t ask him how he knew. Teal’c’s always known them better than they know themselves. Part of her is certain it was Teal’c who gave the report to General Hammond after the mining mission; she still thinks the mine staff is too focused on rocks to pick up on anything being wrong between the three of them. If it was, she doesn’t blame him. It’s a miracle they got out of the prison without being fatally distracted by each other. They were stupid to think they could make it work.

She wonders if they would’ve been allowed to keep it and stay together as a team if the telepathy had affected Teal’c, too. She doubts it, but it’s an interesting thought that’s kept her mind occupied on long hikes across boring planets. Heat rises in her cheeks each time she considers how it would have worked on Earth, if it had remained just her and Daniel, or if it had been the three of them, or if she would’ve upgraded her bed to a king. It’s a moot point and she starts to push it out of her mind before remembering that the other two can’t hear her anymore. It took so long to learn how not to think about things, she wonders when it’ll no longer be automatic to think about physics when an inappropriate thought crosses her mind.

Teal’c is still looking at her, puzzled. “Is everything alright, Major Carter?”

She frowns and stares into the campfire. She really ought to go to sleep and get some rest before it’s her watch. “We’re not quite right, are we?”

“The three of you do appear different,” Teal’c acknowledges.

Sam knows he’d never say that they’re not working quite as well as they used to, at least not to her. They can make do with what they have now; they’re not so far out of sync that it’ll become dangerous, but it’s the little things that are off: bumping into each other, two pairs of hands trying to make coffee, a few words overlapped, unsure that the other person has stopped speaking.

“Would you mind?” she asks quietly. It had happened accidentally before, a result of alien technology and not knowing how to block out emotions. She feels like she ought to ask him first this time, since they’ll be leaving him out but still working as a team. Sam doesn’t even know if what she’s thinking would solve the problem, but it’s the only option to try.

“Would it not be against regulations?”

Sam sighs and leans back, staring up at the stars. Her breath mingles with the smoke from their campfire, disappearing into the crisp night. “It would,” she concedes.

“And would I not be obligated to tell General Hammond if I were made aware of any such relationship?”

Sam shifts her gaze to her left, settling on Teal’c. “You would,” she says reluctantly.

He offers her a small smile before returning his gaze to the fire. “Then it would be best if I were not made aware.”

She knows that’s the closest to a blessing she’ll get from Teal’c for this. She wants to hug him.

* * *

  
“How’s your ankle?” Sam asks, bringing a glass of water over to Daniel. She sits next to him on the couch, swirling her second glass of wine before taking a sip.

Daniel flexes his ankle underneath the ice pack. “I’ll live.” It’s not as bad as it looks and they’ll be back in the field in a week. He slides his arm around Sam’s shoulders. “What’s up with you?” He may not be able to read her mind anymore, but he knows that she’s been thinking intently about something ever since they got back from their latest mission. And the look on her face isn’t the one she gets when she’s puzzled by science.

Sam sighs and shifts away from Daniel so she can turn and look at him. She hasn’t said anything about her conversation with Teal’c or what she’s thinking, and isn’t sure she should. As good as they all are at not talking about what happened, she knows that if they were given the opportunity, they’d spend hours talking themselves out of it. Being talked out of it is not what she wants, nor does she think it’s what they want.

Daniel nudges her knee, wondering if she heard him.

She inhales quickly, her decision made. “We should call Jack,” she says. They’ll talk or not talk, but the three of them need to do this together.

Daniel swallows and studies her face. After a moment, he nods, understanding exactly what she’s thinking.

* * *

  
Jack pulls up behind Daniel’s car and takes the key out of the ignition. He sits in his truck for a moment, thinking. Finally, a twitch of the curtains from the living room and a silhouette – very clearly Sam’s – against the window encourages him to get out.

The door opens in front of him with his hand halfway to the doorbell. He smiles at Sam, and Daniel behind her.

 _This feels right_ , they think, as the door closes behind him.


End file.
